Setting up Data Entry Forms for Medical Database

[gbs01]

I have been given a bunch of Medical documents created in Word. My friend wants an "Electronic" version of these paper documents. Does anyone have suggestions (or sample database) to "convert" these for use in Access?
Here's what I have thought so far:

1) Create tables (tblPatientRegistration,
tblQuestionaire, tblMedicalHistory, etc to store all
of the data from each paper document.
2) Then create new Forms for data entry that look like the
paper copy of each document.
3) Create queries to collect the data from the tables &
send it to the Report.
4) Lastly, Create Reports that are formatted to look like the Originals, but with the stored data inserted.

Question:

1) Does anyone have a sample database that easily allows data entry similar to a paper form, that effieciently stores the data collected, and then prints off the form to look exactly like the original "paper" one?

Thanks in advance!
Jerry

 

[KenReay]

Hi

The key question here (in my view) is how are you going to transfer the data from the paper documents to the Access tables.

do you have the electronic version of the word documents?

if not do you plan to scan the documents and use OCR to convert them to text files

is the form of the documents Uniform enough to allow parsing of teh data to extract the relevant bits

or

do you plan to input the data manually?

Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[willir]

Jerry

There are three solutions to this...

The easiest
In Access, create a field in your table using the hyperlink. In the form, the record can be linked to the Word document. The user clicks on the link, and Word opens up with the document.

A slicker, and safer solution would be to convert the documents to PDF (Acrobat) forms. The forms would allow data entry but the user would not be able to edit the form.

This solution would not allow data in the forms to be captured (unless you got real fancy in the Acrobat form and used the java scripting ability).

This type of solution would be very simple to setup, and may server as an intermediary towards your ultimate goal.


A medium solution
Manually recreate the form in Access as a form. You will have to create tables - patient, professional(doctore or nurse), questions and answers.

Tedious, but would allow data to be captured.

The forms would not look like the original Word documents. However, the printed report can look pretty slick (but again, takes work).


Perhaps the last solution...
I have not done this, but I know it can be done - I just don't know about the technical issues. With the web interface, the form should look more like the original form and capture the data.


I am not aware of any third party tool to do what you want automatically.

Per your sample database. Since your needs, forms and questions will be unique, I suspect you will need to work on this yourself. This forum can provide you with suggestions on design, and how to handle form and report issues, but I suspect some grunt work will, and an understanding of databases still be required on your part.

Richard

 

[gbs01]

Thanks So Much for the Replies!
I have decided to create new Tables, Forms, Queries, Reports to collect, store & print out the Documents.

It has taken a few hours, but I'm almost half-way done.
I have made the input forms look similiar to the original paper form, but I am making the Report look identical to the original. That way the clerks & nurses wont be thown off.

Thanks again!
Jerry