Creation, Design and Implementation of Breast Reconstruction Surgical Database Network (::BRecSDNet)

Abstract

The Breast Reconstruction Surgical Database Network (BRecSDNet) was initially proposed by Dr. Leif Sigurdson because the division of plastic surgery at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences centre does not have a central database to store patients’ information related to breast reconstruction. Currently, all data captured are paper-based and require extensive work by the plastic surgeons to retrieve pertinent data as related to specific breast reconstruction. The BRecSDNet is a newly developed relational database system to support plastic surgeons to capture, store and retrieve information related to patient’s demographics, medical history, cancer history, pre-operative visits, reconstruction, operating room data and post operative follow-ups. With appropriate data mining techniques and statistical analysis of the data captured and stored in the system, the plastic surgeons will not only be able to determine the patient’s health status: comfort, function, and likelihood of dying (severity) but also measure their health outcome. The programming language used for the implementation of the BRecSD database is Visual Basic for Application (VBA). Microsoft Access is the relational database management system (RDBMS) used. The web interface required the use of MySQL Server and PHP. HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript were used in designing most of the web pages. MyODBC is also used to connect the BRecSD database with the MySQL Server.