Software Engineering Consideration in the Design and Implementation of Electronic Patients Information Management System (E-PIMS) for University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH)

摘要

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to apply software engineering principles and methodologies to design and implement an electronic patients' information management system (E-PIMS) with a secured database, which would provide efficiency and reliability; reduces healthcare cost; and provide the best control of patients' status based on their test. Design/Methodology/ApproachrThe E-PIMS employed the Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM) to design the system using the waterfall process model. UML (Unified Modeling Language) was used as a tool to model the system. HTML with cascading style sheet (CSS) was used to create the web pages; JavaScript was adopted as the programming language because it has an Application Programming Interface (API). PHP was used to design our forms and MYSQL was used as the database engine. Findings: The study has been able to demonstrate that following the software engineering life-cycle, from inception up to deployment stage produces software-based systems that allow customers achieve business goals. Research Limitation: The major limiting factor in this research work was time, materials and money which hindered the full implementation of the system. Originality/Value: This research work is valuable because a system of this nature has never been deployed or used in any hospital in Calabar including the UCTH, and if fully implemented and deployed will greatly improve the services of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital.