Development of the Internet-Based Total Health Care Management System Using Electronic Mail

Abstract

In order to develop the distributed database management system for total health care management on the Internet (the world wide computer network) as an infrastructure, a new distributed type network-based database management system using the electronic mail (e-mail) system was reported in this paper. The basic architecture of this system is as follows ; (1) the history management server stores only the consultation record of about 100, 000-population, (2) it also indicates the medical consultation records and health care histories (when, where, and summary of medical procedures) of the each person when it is required, (3) the facility management system stores the raw data of each person and sends it when the patient or doctor makes a request through the history management server. A model system was built using the e-mail system in an Internet environment on a UNIX* workstation as an experiment. The performance of this model was considered to be adequate for practical use since the basic facilities can be easily set up. J Epidemiol. 1995; 5 : 131-140.