The Healthcare Database System

Sheena M. Hunt

Database Paper

DBM/381

University of Phoenix

Healthcare database systems are critical in health care. Databases are used frequently in healthcare. There are different types of databases. This paper will define health care database systems and describe how databases are used across the health care industry. It will also explain the different database architectures including the relational architecture and describe the needs of database users across the health care continuum. A database is any collection of data organized for storage, accessibility, and retrieval. A healthcare database serves to replace the paper documents, file folders, and filing cabinets of old. This makes data more convenient and immediate.
This data is normally retrieved through the activities of patient care and is very useful. Documentation that is within health care databases is frequently used for improving quality, patient security and safety, better decision making, and putting a stop to redundancy. Healthcare databases made it easy for the organization by facilitating, organizing, storing, and processing large amounts of data. Databases across the health care industry are used in several ways. Databases are used to reimbursement purposes for payment. They have become popular with payments from Medicare and Medicaid. There are databases that are used for specific diseases that are widespread in health care. When an outbreak occurs and incidents of diseases in specific areas, health care databases are used to find the geographic locations. Databases are also used in clinical practices. They are made useful for billing, keeping patient records, and automating sensitive
The differences in the architectures are based on how the tables and records are related. Relational architecture is a very popular database. It is also the most mature and widely used database system in production. Relational databases can be used to track patient care in the form of treatments, outcomes of those treatments, and critical indicators of a patient 's current state such as blood pressure, heart rate, and blood glucose levels. They can also be used to interconnect with multiple informational systems throughout a healthcare facility. Relational databases have the potential to eliminate paper storage and transfer of information and to answer important questions about healthcare efficacy. Relational systems serve as the repositories of record behind nearly all online transactions and most online content management systems including social networks. This database also serves as a well-understood point of reference for new extensions and revolutions in database systems that may arise in the future. Another type of database architecture is the Object-oriented model. This model is powerful and quite complex. With the relatively new object-relational database model is the wide spread and simple relational database model extended by some basic object-oriented concepts. These allow them to work with the relational database model but also have some advantages of the