CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Medicine, like many other professions today is faced with major problem of information
management and resource sharing. In developed societies, hospitals, especially laboratories, are
equipped with computers to process patient’s samples and return the results to the operator (the
Medical laboratory scientists). In such laboratories, details of previous visits by a patient such as
attending doctors, laboratory attendants, nature of ailments etc. are easily made available and
help provide a comprehensive medical record of the patients.

A comprehensive web-based system is the principal ingredient of a specialized Hospital

Management System. It must possess all the ingredients of a centralized system with addition to
procedures and processes that allow for simultaneous access to data at various points. Nigeria
today has become so pre-occupied with health and fitness to the point that getting and staying
healthy are quick becoming a hobby. Being fit is now in vogue. There are many weekly and
monthly health and fitness magazines, and currently diet and exercise books have consistently
been among the “top ten” on non-fiction best-seller lists. Health and fitness-club membership
have soared and a 24-hour cable Television health network now offers comprehensive medical,
scientific and self-care information. All these activities are facilitated by the programmable
electronic device i.e. computer.

There are several areas where the use of computer is applicable and new applications are being
developed almost every day. This project highlights the role of computer in hospitals, by using a
web-based system for easy accessibility of patient’s medical record, and for easy diagnoses and
treatments, easy referencing to patients past medical records, and management decision making.
Consequently, this is the foundation on which this project is mainly focused.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Hospital is an institution that is built, staffed, and equipped for the diagnosis of disease, for
the treatment both medical and surgical, of the sick and the injured; and for their housing during
this process. The modern hospital also often serves as a center for investigation and for teaching.
Hospitals have long existed in most countries. Developing countries, which contain a large
proportion of the world’s population, generally do not have enough hospitals, equipment, and
trained staff to handle the volume of persons who need care. Thus, people in these countries do
not always receive the benefits of modern medicine, public health measures, or hospital care, and
they generally have lower life expectancies.

Nigeria practices both orthodox medical care and traditional healing. Traditional medical
practitioners are native doctor who practice in rural areas but occasionally find patronage in
urban cities. The health care service by native doctors does not follow formal protocols or
depend on scientific tests to arrive at diagnosis. Sometimes third treatment endangers the lives of
their patient from overdose of herbal extracts. These traditional healers do not have orthodox
training, but depend on generation beliefs handed down by ancestors. Even though the practice
of western medicine is rapidly expanding in Nigeria, the non-availability of modern medical
technologies in the health care arena remains a threat to the success of orthodox medicine. Health
care service delivery in Nigeria fall short of international standard resulting from poor state of
health care infrastructure, shortage of medical professional, threat of re-emerging infectious
diseases and poor sanitation. Over the last five decades post-independence, growth and
development in healthcare has been dismal. Recognizable demographic diversity exists in
Nigeria with consequent disparity in availability of health care facilities across the country.
Hospital management system help to improve access to health care remote suburban areas and
ensure improved maintenance of long term care, in separate studies conducted to assess patient
and community satisfaction, found discontent with community members who decried the poorly
staffed and inadequately equipped Primary Health Center (PHC) in their rural settlement
compared to hospital in urban centers, such demographic disparity in the health care accessibility
benefit from hospital information technologies and telemedicine to Foster collaboration between
clinicians in urban areas and those in rural settlement. Hospital management system includes
strategies decision support system and clinical documentation system. Some of the clinical
support system includes Laboratory Information System (LIS), Radiology Information System
(RIS), and Computerized Order Entry (COE). An inadequacy of government policy regarding the
implementation of hospital management system exists in Nigeria. The lack of strategies
government programs has culminated in the poor adoption of hospital information technologies
in health care facilities across the country.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The current mode of operation in hospitals has a lot of limitation namely:

i. Lack of immediate retrieval: Patient’s information is very difficult to find and retrieve
especially during emergency for example, to find out about the patient’s history, the user
has to go through various registers. This results in inconvenience and wastage of time and
this can lead to death in case of an emergency.
ii. Lack of prompt update: Various changes of information like patient details or
immunization details of child are difficult to make as paper work is involved.
iii. Error in manual calculation: Manual calculations are error prone and take a lot of time
this may result in incorrect information. for example, calculation of patient’s bill based
on various treatments.
iv. Preparation of accurate and prompt reports: This becomes a difficult task as
information is difficult to collect from various register and collate together.

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The aim of this project is to develop a robust Hospital Management System that will cater for
overall hospital needs. The specific objectives are:

1. Develop a system for better patient care

2. Recording information about the Patients that come.
3. Generation of bills.
4. Recording information related to diagnosis given to Patients.
5. Keeping record of the Immunization provided to children/patients.
6. Keeping information about various diseases and medicines available to cure them.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Some of the significance of the Hospital management system include:
 i. Reduction in Errors: Hospital management system will help in reducing different types
of errors that made through interventions like missing billing, operational failure, clinical
errors, cost leakages, missing appointments and much more.
ii. Cost Effective: Hospital management system information system helps to track and
control finances, Hospital management system helps in reducing the human resources
costs as most of the work is automated.
iii. Processing Speed and Results: Doctor and Nurses will be able to treat patients with a
better way and accessing their real-time reports and other information regarding the
patients, and their past clinical data.
iv. Improve data security: Experts have highlighted and reinforced that hospitals that rely
on manual systems are more vulnerable to data theft and leakage than automated ones. A
full-fledged hospital management system keeps every bit of information secure from
unauthorized access.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

The steps involved in collecting and keeping staff and patients records safe include:
i. Information about Patients is done by just writing the Patients name, age and gender.
Whenever the Patient comes up his information is stored freshly.
ii. Bills are generated by recording price for each facility provided to Patient on a separate
sheet and at last they all are summed up.
iii. Diagnosis information to patients is generally recorded on the document, which contains
Patient information. It is destroyed after some time period to decrease the paper load in
the office.
iv. Immunization records of children are maintained in pre-formatted sheets, which are kept
in a file.
v. Information about various diseases is not kept as any document. Doctors themselves do
this job by remembering various medicines.
1.6 LIMITATION
A lot of setbacks were encountered in course of this project. There were constraints in many
areas namely:

i. finance: The high cost of materials for the project and the everyday constraint
increase in transportation tax during data collection affected the research work.
ii. data collection: The research work had a problem in collecting data from staff due to
busyness of the staff.
iii. material: Material constrains play a major role in that limiting some research
that would have contributed immensely.

1.5 CHOICE OF PROGRAMMING

Programming languages that was used to developed this project are:
i. HTML (Hypertext markup language): The Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML is
the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web
browser.
ii. CSS (Cascading style sheet): Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language and use
it is used to style an HTML document. CSS describes how HTML elements should be
displayed.
iii. PHP (Hypertext preprocessor): PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared
towards web development.

1.8 METHODOLOGY

The core concept underlying research is its methodology, which is crucial role in
answering the research questions adequately. The methods used in obtaining the data and
information are critical since it provides a framework for achieving the desired results. This
definition can be considered as a milestone as it implies that research methodology is a set of
information gathering techniques as well as, the analysis of it. The review of literature in the
previous chapter provided the context of the problem in healthcare, theoretical background of the
topic including findings in precedent studies. The aim of this chapter is to present the
philosophical assumptions underpinning this research, as well as, to introduce the research
strategy and methods used based on past studies. The chapter details the research method
adopted and continues with an explanation of data collection and data analyses employed in the
study. The first part of the chapter contains the design of the conceptual framework, followed by
development of the hypotheses, method used and data collection. The analytical aspect for the
study will be discussed in the individual chapters.

1.9 USED TERMS DEFINITION

i. HTML (Hypertext markup language): The Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML

is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web
browser.
ii. CSS (Cascading style sheet): Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language and use
it is used to style an HTML document. CSS describes how HTML elements should be
displayed.
iii. PHP (Hypertext preprocessor): PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared
towards web development.
iv. Laboratory Information System (LIS): A laboratory information management
system, sometimes referred to as a laboratory information system or laboratory
management system, is a software-based solution with features that support a modern
laboratory's operations
v. Radiology Information System (RIS): A radiological information system is the core
system for the electronic management of imaging departments. The major functions
of the RIS can include patient scheduling, resource management, examination
performance tracking, reporting, results distribution, and procedure billing
vi. Primary Health Center (PHC): Primary health care (PHC) is the first level of contact
for individuals, the family, and the community with the national health system and
“addresses the main health problems in the community, providing health promotion,
preventive, curative and rehabilitative services accordingly
vii. Computerized Order Entry (COE): Computerized physician order entry, sometimes
referred to as computerized provider order entry or computerized provider order
management, is a process of electronic entry of medical practitioner instructions for
the treatment of patients under his or her care
 CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
The chapter aims at summarizing the present system of hospital
management. It will show the organisational structure history of the case study.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
As mentioned in the previous chapter, a hospital is a place where people
come with several diseases for treatments. People also come for regular check-ups
and tests. Keeping of data and management of information in hospitals have
proven to be a heck of a job using the conventional file method. This method is
cheaper and easier to implement but with the introduction of information
technology in the world today, a new perspective and a new light has been
introduced into several sectors of the world today. The hospital is also one of those
places where information technology has affected. Hospitals are now computerized
and the management of the entire hospital can be done on a computer.
2.2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Immanuel General Hospital is located in Eket, Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria.
It address in No. 52 hospital road Eket, Akwa Ibom State. It is a federal Hospital.
The facilities are up to date and standard though infrastructural renovation of
the hospital is highly recommended. The staffers are qualified and security of
patients’ details is of utmost importance to the hospital.
From the inception of the hospital, the mode of management has been the
conventional file system.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

2.4 FEATURES OF A GOOD HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The following are features of a good hospital management system:
1. Registration:- on the system, the users are able to register according to its
hierarchy, so that a username and a password will be provided to the user in
order to login to the system. The user database and records are maintained
by the system and also you can add, update and delete the records from the
system with proper privileges (depending on the user i.e. user or admin)
2. Patient check in/check-out:-
For In-patient (IPD): if the new patient gets admitted to the system then a
unique record is generated for each patient and patient detail along with the
room reservation and its case papers and other details will be stores in the
system. Once patient gets a discharge then is checked out from the hospital,
billing details will be taken care of by the system.
For Out-Patient: if the new patient visits the doctor, in the system then
generates a unique record for each patient and patient details along with its
case papers and other details are stored in the system billing details are also
taken care of by the system.
3. Inventory System: - The system keeps track of all the inventory of the
hospital which may include various departments such as pharmaceuticals,
food and laundry department to name but the few. Stock and vendor details
are maintained by the system.
4. Medicine:- The pharmaceutical department is a very important part of the
hospital. The system keeps track of the inventory. The patient prescription
details and the information about the category wise medicine are stored. The
system will inform the user in advance in case of the storage updating and
inventory maintenance. The records for each patient and its bills will be
maintained by the system.
5. Patient Record Maintenance:- The system maintaining a detail record of
each patient who will be admitted to the hospital. The patients’ case papers
will be generated automatically and will be maintained in the proper format.
6. Staff record maintenance: - The system keeps track of the entire staff of the
hospital. The details of each and every staff of the hospital. The details of
each and every staff (user) will be maintained online and a username and
 password will be provided to concerned users so that they can log on to the
system and perform activities related to the concerned departments.
7. Staff payroll system: - The system maintains the entire payroll system of the
hospital. The staff’s pay slips as well as addition and deduction to their
salaries are maintained by the system.
8. Doctor consultant: - The system will provide a forum for the senior as well
as the junior doctors so that they can consult with each other online. It will
be of great help for the doctors, surgeons and practice students to keep tracks
of their activities and schedules as well as it will save a lot of time of users.
9. Blood bank Maintenance: - The system keeps the track of blood bank it will
generate automated reports keeping tracks of inventory for stock bloods of
different blood groups and their expiry dates.
2.5 BENEFITS OF A COMPUTERIZED HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
The following are benefits of adopting a computerized system of hospital
management:
1. It will require less staff to handle more patients simultaneously
2. This system will not just provide opportunities to hospitals to improve
their patients care but can also increase the organisational benefits
3. The system would facilitate to develop the reaction time to the patient
care’s demands since it computerizes the procedure of collating,
collecting as well as retrieving patient data.
4. It also helps to reduce the out-patient wait time and by making records
easily accessible
5. It helps to handle all types of billing for different categories of patients.
6. It helps in improving reorganization of operations and operational
control.
 CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM DESIGN AND ANALYSIS
3.0 INTRODUCTION
A system is a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an
interconnecting system. It is a set of interacting or interdependent component
forming an integrated whole or a set of elements to other elements.
Some characteristics of a system include:
i. A system has behaviour, it contains processes that transform inputs into
outputs
ii. A system has interconnectivity; the parts and processes are connected by
structural and or behavioural relationship
3.1 SYSTEM ANALYSIS
This is a process by which an old system is analysed and the flaws of the old
system are documented and procedures are taken to develop a new system with a
better functionality. There are several steps taken to achieve this; these steps are
called “SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE”
3.2 EXISTING SYSTEM
Existing system refers to the system that is being followed till now.
Presently, all the hospitals functionalities are done manually. That is if a patient
wants to consult a doctor, he can sit in the waiting room till his chance is called.
This procedure makes things very difficult. The main disadvantage is that it is time
consuming.
3.3 LIMITATIONS TO EXISTING SYSTEM
 Lack of security of data
 Time consuming
 Consumes large volume of paper work
 Manual work
  No direct role for the higher officials
To avoid all these limitations and make the system working ore
accurately, it needs to be computerized.
3.4 RESEARCH METHODS
Basically, I used two methods of research to gather the necessary
information I used to do this project:
 Interview method: - This entails the face to face questions asking and replies
between two individuals. At some stages in the project research, it was
necessary for me to interview some workers in the hospital so as to get some
really important details. The advantage of this method is that it is more
accurate and you tend to get a more accurate and faster reply.
 Questionnaire method: - This involves passing or giving out questions typed
in a sequence for individuals to fill and return. A questionnaire is a set of
printed or written questions with a choice of answers, devised for the
purposes of a survey or statistical study.
These questionnaires where passed round to staff in the hospital and
collected. The replies were then compared and information gathered to fulfil
this project.
3.5 SYSTEM DESIGN
The system was designed with vb 2008 (.net frame work)
(a) Splash screen
(b) Login screen
(c) Action form (user)

(d) Action form (Admin)

(e) Register patient

(f) Register staff

(g) Doctor search

(h) Change Password

 CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND DOCUMENTATION
4.0 INTRODUCTION
This section will show the user how the system can be implemented and the
importance of documentation.
4.1 IMPLEMENTATION
This system can be implemented by simply following the following steps;
1. Put the installation CD into the disk drive
2. Run the installation setup
3. Allow the program to install
4. Launch the program from the program list in your system.
4.2 SYSTEM TESTING
The goal of software testing is to detect before it is delivered, installed and
make operation.
Defects include bugs as well as inefficiencies that may cause a system not to
satisfy all its requirements.
Test is done in other to discover if there is any inherent logical error,
eventually the whole system is tested for efficiency and reliability.
After the whole system might have been affirmed reliable, it is finally installed for
the user and it has been successfully completed.
There are two types of testing
1. Unit testing: - has to do with testing the individual components in the system
using test data.
2. System testing: - Parts are linked together and test data is also used to see if
the part works together.
4.3 SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION
 This has to do with documentation of the proposed system together with the
maintenance of the newly designed system.
Documentation is an important element in the development and running of
any computer project, the documentation of the system may also be received for
performance standard based on records of time and resource budgeted and used in
developing as compared to a system type, scope and complexity. Proper
documentation helps when the analyst is not available, another analyst can easily
take over instead of starting all over again.
Documentation provides information that describes a product to user
including a user’s guide or reference manual that provides a narrative and
graphical description of the program.
4.4 CHOICE OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
The choice of programming language for this project is Visual BASIC 2008
(.net frame work). It is an object oriented programming language.
 CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Conclusion
The project Hospital Management System (HMS) is for computerizing the working
in a hospital. The software takes care of all the requirements of an average hospital
and is capable to provide easy and effective storage of information related to
patients that come up to the hospital.
It generates test reports; provide prescription details including various tests and
medicines prescribed to patient and doctor. It also provides billing facility on the
basis of patient’s status whether it is an indoor or outdoor patient.
The system also provides the facility of backup as per the requirement.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX ONE
 login

doctors

services
Admin database

employees

warddetails

outpatients