MUMPS: A support for medical information systems

A medical information relational database system (MIRDS)

A medical information relational database system (MIRDS) which is resident on a relational database machine and is accessed via microcomputers has been created for a pediatric pulmonary division of a research hospital. The power and flexibility of MIRDS has permitted the integration of clinical tasks, research interests, and laboratory functions. Procedures have been devised to assure data integrity, allow flexibility in data retrievals, produce standardized report formats, and permit data access for users with a wide range of query expertise. There are few impediments to the integration of additional clinical, research, and laboratory functions as the system evolves.

An automated medical record system for a skilled nursing facility

This paper reports on the development of an on-line automated medical record system suitable for nursing homes. The software was written in standard MUMPS (Massachusetts General Hospital Utilities Multi-Programming System) and is easy for the first-time user to operate. The data managed by the system may be divided into four major components, including text tables, the hierarchical problem dictionary, the patient admission data, and the care plan data. The system met all of the project's objectives and has been enthusiastically received by the nursing home staff.

An efficient medical database system implementation with its tool and data structure consideration

The development of a new system for medical database application running on minicomputer under MUMPS system is described. Two kinds of data representation in global structure are briefly reviewed. The use of a subject oriented multi-dimensional data structure greatly simplifies database design and facilitates data manipulation, organization, selective retrieval and software development. It is concluded that the program generator approach can provide the flexibility necessary for various applications and future growth of computerized medical record system. The final system has been proven effective in practical operation. The future extension concerns the introduction of multi-microprocessor structure and logic representation is presented.

Database technology in health care

In this paper we will introduce the concepts of database technology in a way that will make it easy to relate the issues of the technology to problems in health care. After the objectives of the database approach have been defined, the major components of databases and their function will be discussed. The remainder of this paper presents the scientific and operational issues associated with database technology in health care. In the scientific exposition we will begin with the logical design issues, those that assure that the data will reflect the medical environment correctly, and then we will discuss the choices that are available for the physical implementation of a database on a computer system. The operational aspects will range from data entry to output presentation. The importance and growth of these systems has been well documented. Rather than providing a survey of the field, this exposition is intended to link general concepts to the practices observed by us and others.