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Software Engineering: A fundamental Approach to Automate and Interface Medical Electronic Systems with Computers in Healthcare Systems


Hashim M. Twaakyondo
Joseph E. Mbowe

Abstract

The cost for application software and propriatry standards (i.e. data structure and formats) required for storing  clinical datasets  from  electronic  device  cause  the  use  of  time-consuming  paper-based  documentation  and/or  the  transfer  of electronic  lab  records  manually  to  the  PC  database systems  in  Mother-Offspring  Malaria  Study  (MOMS)  Laboratory Unit located in Morogoro Regional Hospital, Tanzania. We have explored the ability to extract laboratory results from Haematology  analyzer  machine  for  easy  management, access  and  storage.  The  methodology  and  tools  used  during  the study includes; site survey and hands-on practice for requirement engineering, visual basic 6.0 for interface design and Microsoft  Access  for  relational  database  design.  The  study  has  developed  a  model  “COmpose-TRAansmit-COnvent-COmpose” convention (acronym COTRACOCO) to implements an open serial port interface that required only a driver class to execute the labs outputs for storage in database with at run-time with less programming knowledge. The study demonstrated that the COTRACOCO convention presented is general and may promote a new paradigm for establishing the robust serial port communication systems for any digital device


Journal Identifiers


eISSN: 2619-8789
print ISSN: 1821-536X