Health-care databases and its role in transformation of medicine

Abstract

Health-care database is a collection of health-care data organized for storage, accessibility, and retrieval. Health-care database serves to replace the paper documents, filing cabinets of old, and file folders, which will be more convenient and immediate. At present, health-care system is in a transition from a patient care perspective toward information-based medicine requiring data from various sources such as laboratory tests, genetic tests, medical images, family histories, and patient medical records, which need to be easily stored, integrated, and analyzed. The most commonly used database in health care is the online transaction processing (OLTP) database among different types of databases available. OLTP database is the one that is a single computer application runs on, and the main strength of it is quick and real-time transaction processing. Electronic health record is a prime example of the OLTP, and practitioners enter routine clinical and laboratory data into them during usual practice as a record of the patient's care. Data can be stored externally in a secure place and can be backed up to prevent data loss with these health-care databases. The back-end data can therefore become more accurate and standardized because of the front-end software providing tip text and enforce data. Furthermore, the health-care database allows the rapid processing of classical transactions such as laboratory results and payment claims as the data are computerized.