Patient administration system

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Patient Administration Systems (often abbreviated to PAS) developed out of the automation of administrative paperwork in healthcare organisations, particularly hospitals, and are one of the core components of a hospital's IT infrastructure. The PAS records the patient's demographics (e.g. name, home address, date of birth) and details all patient contact with the hospital, both outpatient and inpatient. [1]

Hospital health care institution

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized medical and nursing staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital typically is the major health care facility in its region, with a large number of beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care. Specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children's hospitals, seniors' (geriatric) hospitals, and hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric treatment and certain disease categories. Specialized hospitals can help reduce health care costs compared to general hospitals. Hospitals are classified as general, specialty, or government depending on the sources of income received.

A patient is any recipient of health care services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, psychologist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care provider.

Contents

PAS systems are often criticised for providing only administrative functionality to hospitals, however attempts to provide more clinical and operational functionality have often been expensive failures.

History

In the UK, IRC PAS was developed at North Staffordshire Health Authority in the late 1960s. [2] It became widely used within the NHS and was supported commercially by ICL. Siemens Nixdorf acquired the PAS in 1996 but dropped support in 1998. [3] The NPfIT project was claimed to have deployed a total 141 new generation PAS by 2008 [4] but this figure had risen to only 170 by 2010. [5]

International Computers Limited defunct British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company

International Computers Limited (ICL) was a large British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.

Core Functions

PAS Systems provide a number of core essential functions to hospitals:

  1. Master Patient Index
  2. Appointment Booking
  3. Waiting List Management
  4. Record of Patient Activity
  5. Activity Returns/Billing
  6. Reporting
  7. Admission

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References

  1. "Learning from Bristol: the report of the public inquiry into children's heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary 1984 -1995". Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry. 2001-07-01. p. 7. Archived from the original on 2002-06-24. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
  2. Smith MF. "The NHS can succeed in IT". BMJ 2003;326 (letter) 25 January.
  3. "Siemens dumps system". HSJ 16 July 1998.
  4. "Tuesday 4 November 2008". House of Commons.
  5. "NHS: IT Strategy". House of Lords.