Preliminary Computer-based Healthcare System for Ministry of Health of Syria

Abstract

This internship work is an initial step in designing a Healthcare System for the Arabian Republic of Syria. Syria itself is located at the eastern edges of the Mediterranean Sea, at the Middle East area in Asia. It has a population of almost 20 million people. Syria is divided into 14 governorates. Each governorate has a number of regions. Each region has many districts and each district includes many villages. The Ministry of Health in Syria runs the Healthcare System in paper-based format. Information is often duplicated in the various forms used in the Syrian healthcare system. Ministry of Health in Syria is currently using more than 120 forms and reports in their healthcare system. Developing a computer-based system would increase the productivity, efficiency and accuracy for healthcare outcomes The Arabic language is the only official language in the forms of the Syrian Healthcare Paper System. Important to the success of transferring the Syrian Healthcare system from a paper based system to an electronic system is a solid knowledge of both English and Arabic languages. The Author obtained 128 forms from Dr. Graven to organize in such a way that would make them uncomplicated and easily understood to anyone working in healthcare administration. Identifying the repeated main forms and the repeated information in the forms of the different departments was a main focus. Extracting all the fields from all the main forms, translating all the fields including the Arabic Medical Terms into English was the biggest task in this internship. Creating a Data Dictionary is an important step in the design of a database to provide a description of the forms’ content. The Author created a data dictionary that contains a unique ID number and name for every main form and its fields. Entering the required fields into an Excel sheet in both languages (Arabic and English) was the last task.