Hi I'm totally new to the forum so please forgive me if I ask stupid questions. I need advice and help. I would like some advice regarding software or is it computer programming. I need to develop a program that can monitor patients in and out of hospitals. The aim of the program will allow nurses to locate empty beds in the hospital, when the beds will become available and when they expect them to be filled. The program will monitor the amount of patients entering hospital the length of stay and when they leave. I'm in the early stage of investigation and would like to know if such a system could be devloped and used on PC. What programs are out there that could help or would a new program have to be developed. Regards Spookey
Well you could develop a simple booking system in a language such as VB...I myself developed one for a piece of coursework at college. However you may be needing something more 'professional' with greater functionality than that of what VB can provide. Will you be coding this yourself? If not, I'm pretty sure there will be software out there ideal for your needs...but custom software is usually better.
Such a system can be developed with less effort than you would expect. If you want to go down the VB (Visual Basic) route, yo can use MS Access which allows you to build a database system with VBA and the database engine included. If you want to use pure VB with an external database then it'll be slightly more work. There are many ways to do this, you don't have to stick to VB. But its recommended as other languages have a steeper learning curve.
Thanx to you both. Its all new to me! What is a visual basic route and where can I get hold of one and what are the advantages of having a database engine included? Regards Spookey
Visual Basic is a programming language that could be ideal for your requirements. It has support for database integration...meaning you could store information in an access database, like for example patient names/what beds are taken etc, and pull up and modify this information as required, via an interface that someone would code and design. VB isn't free although you can download VB Express from the microsoft site. however it sounds as though you have no prior programming experience and it may be in your best interest to hire somebody, or to learn the language before progressing. VB is not a difficult language to learn and so it could be a good starting point. The advantages of the database would be the ease of use to maintain and update. It is also fairly flexible and sounds like it could be ideal.
Is this just an excercise or a real thing? Unless you are trying to re-invent the wheel and break into the hospital occupancy monitoring software field, I would try and get in touch with the IT department of one, or a few, large hospitals, to see if such a program is already implemented. If not, hey, you might be onto something.
I work as a nurse at a large hospital. The system would be based at ward level and would enable nurses to monitor bed availability and access bed space when it becomes available across the trust site. At present I'm trying to put together a feasibility study.
I would think there is something like that already available...I can't imagine with all the technology available that we would still be recording beds availabliltiy on pen and paper. As suggested, consider contacting the IT department?
I recommend you to use Visual Studio .Net and in VS.net do not use any language but forms and it will be much easier for you to learn. But for the back hand you need a database. If yor are using this program in only couple of machines then MS Acess(Very Cheap) will be the one for you otherwise Oracle or MySQL(Damn Expensive).
