Although the concept of distributed systems for the storage of patient data is more and more commonly accepted, for some considerable time yet most patient data will be stored in centralized rather than departmental systems. An important advantage of storage in a central system is hospital-wide access to much of the patient data. Disadvantages are however that these data cannot be reviewed through one user interface, and that the structure of the data does not lend itself to exploitation for other purposes. We describe the implementation of an Andrology Research Information System in which these data are integrated in a well-structured database facilitating multiple views on the patient data through a graphical user interface, and clinical research, quality control and summary reports. The data can be analyzed directly using the Hermes workstation. In this way the strengths of the centralized system are combined with those of the dedicated ARIS system.
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