Abstract
To meet the complex needs of a nuclear medicine division serving a 1100-bed hospital, a computer information system has been developed in sequential phases. This database management system is based on a time-shared minicomputer linked to a broadband communications network. The database contains information on patient histories, billing, types of procedures, doses of radiopharmaceuticals, times of study, scanning equipment used, and technician performing the procedure. These patient records are cycled through three levels of storage: (a) an active file of 100 studies for those patients currently scheduled, (b) a temporary storage level of 1000 studies, and (c) an archival level of 10,000 studies containing selected information. Merging of this information with reports and various statistical analyses are possible. This first phase has been in operation for well over a year. The second phase is an upgrade of the size of the various storage levels by a factor of ten.
