A better way to set up tables

[augie0216]

I have a table consisting of patient information I have a separate table with the patient contact in case of emergency names I have a third table called telephone which is set up like this:

phoneID is the PK for tbltelephone
patientID is the PK for tblPatient and FK for tblcontact and tbltelephone
contactID is the Pk for tblContacts and FK for tbltelephones.

I was wondering if in someone's opinion there is a better way to structure these tables.

 

[bkrav]

Why not store everything on a single table? The only reason I wouldn't would be if multiple patients have the same emergency contact and phone number, which would probably be unlinkely.

Also, check out the naming conventions faq:

http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=2190

 

[fneily]

Most of us suggest reading
Fundamentals of Relational Database Design

http://r937.com/relational.html