Abstract:
Health service restructuring in South Africa provides an opportunity to introduce
appropriate Health Information System (HIS) technology. This is particularly relevant
given the emerging HIV epidemic and the need to capture, translate and disseminate
new experiences in HIV/AIDS care, support and clinical research. In 1994, a number
of clinicians and health-care providers working in South Africa had begun to establish
basic computerized databases to assist in research on HIV, but no standardized nomenclature
or framework for collaboration was created. This paper describes a clinical and research
database that could be used as an example for a standardized system by clinicians
working in South Africa. The authors, with assistance from the National AIDS Research
Programme of the Medical Research Council, created a prototype relational database
using Microsoft Access™. To test the prototype, 1057 HIV-positive patients from the Infectious Disease Clinic
at Johannesburg General Hospital were entered.
Keywords:
Databases - Immunodeficiency Syndrome
