One can hardly imagine professional activity without modern technologies including the opportunities that the usage of databases gives. I am not an exception. In this paper, the database used in my working environment and its characteristics are described. Further, the entities that are part of the database are given. Finally, an entity-relationship (E-R) diagram for one of the entities is made.
I work in Northwell Hospital. In my work setting, AHA Annual Survey Database is used. This database is notable for exclusive national survey data: it is a comprehensive census of United States hospitals based on the AHA Annual Survey of Hospitals, conducted since 1946 (AHA annual survey database, n.d.). The guarantee of relevance and accuracy is one of the advantages. The information is constantly being collected on hospitals: annual hospital surveys are carried out.
Each year, a questionnaire concerning different data, such as services availability, hospital administration, financial management issues, and staff, is sent to about 7000 registered hospitals in the United States; as a rule, the response rates are high, approximately 90%; all data are collected and verified by the American Hospital Association (Pol & Thomas, 2012). Under these circumstances, one may consider the AHA Annual Survey Database current.
The purpose of the present database is to serve as the tool for making health care reports: it provides statistics produced from various sources that may help investigate present-day tendencies. In this context, state health care organizations and health care specialists, especially researchers, are expected to be the primary users of this database. However, the list is not limited to health professionals. AHA data are also used by government agencies, media, and the industry for accurate and timely analysis and decision-making; besides, some information from the database may be used to support sales, business development, planning, and marketing (AHA data and directories, n.d.).
Thus, potential users of the database are diverse. As for ease of use, the database is user-friendly. Information is represented in several categories. Organizational structure, facility and service lines, inpatient and outpatient utilization, physician arrangements, expenses, staffing, and other sections are examples (AHA data and directories, n.d.). This governance makes work easier.
Addressing the relationships among different actors in the context of different settings, one may use the diagramming technique known as an entity-relationship diagram (Opel, 2009). Patient, Physician, Ward, Testing, and Medicine are among the entities included in the database. The choice of these entities allows for taking into account both individuals involved in health care and the most crucial components of the environment that surround them.
Patients are the center of health care: the system is intended to help them. Physicians are equally important since they do their best to cure people: they make diagnoses, order various tests, and give patients medical treatment. Wards stand for the environment: patients and physicians need proper conditions for recovery and productive work correspondingly. Testing refers to the early stages when doctors send their patients for different tests to evaluate their health and form a diagnosis. Finally, medicine implies a wide range of drugs that doctors prescribe.
Overall, AHA Annual Survey Database plays an essential role. Owing to the data provided, researchers have a chance to refer to relevant and exact data and write their papers. There is no doubt that working with this database is beneficial since it covers important health care issues and offers scope for further quality of services improvement.
References
AHA annual survey database. (n.d.). Web.
AHA data and directories. (n. d.). Web.
Opel, A. (2009). Databases: A beginner’s guide. San Francisco, CA: McGraw Hill Professional.
Pol, L. G., & Thomas, R. K. (2012). The demography of health and health care. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.