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Just before you
recommend anything, make sure you do not reinvent the wheel. There are off-the-shelf computerised community health information systems in the market. They have a user friendly front-end and include clinical and demographic fields, as well as pop-up screens to remind the user (usually a non-medico) of opportunistic actions to take. For example, if the patient is a 52 year-old woman, the Pap smear and mammography reminders will appear on the screen automatically after her age is entered. Some of these software packages have built-in reporting features and allow for customised tables and graphs. If they are not available in your country, use this principle as a guideline to design your own database. Make sure the new software is easy to maintain as no extra funding will be available. |