DATABASE’S Dave McDonald Student No /05/2016 Unit 10 task 1

Doctors Surgery Database A doctors surgery database would be used to keep records of their patients, appointments, staff and medical stock. Then the staff would be able to check when a certain patients appointment is due as well as their doctor’s details, the patients details and in the case of the patient needing any medical treatment, if the surgery has the required items in stock.

Police Database A Police database would contain information on all known criminals as well as the criminals families, those at risk of becoming a criminal, the policing staff, the stock of the supplies the police require, how their funding is spent and what on. Advantages: The police can use queries to narrow down the information of a specific criminal which will make their job much easier. Using the database allows them to keep tabs on people are at risk and aren’t known to the police. Disadvantages: There is a vast amount of criminals with the same name or the same D.O.B so the police have to have a very specific query to save the effort of looking through hundreds of records with the same name. The databases would have to be linked with those across the country so finding and storing all the policing staff will be very difficult.

Military Database A Military database would contain information on all military personal as well as their families. It will also contain the medical information of all personal, which battalions people have been assigned to, their regiment, their pay, where they are stationed etc. This database allows the military to keep track off all personal and stock without using rooms full of files. It helps them to find narrow down the details and where a bout's of a specific member of the armed forces. Advantages: The where a bout’s of one specific member of the armed forces can be pinpointed among thousands of other members. The use of the database saves space so instead of having rooms full of files they have something that takes up one tenth of the space. Disadvantages: The are many people with the same names and D.O.B as well as other details so even a specific search for people who where born on a certain date would bring up hundreds of records.

Flat File Database A Flat File Database stores all of it’s data on one large table. So for example, if the database was for the sales of goods it would contain the order ID, the unit price, the quantity of the goods etc. All this information would be contained in one big table but it isn’t perfect. As the information is in one big table, every time an order is made and delivered the supplier will have to enter all of this information into the database again each time an order is made which is very time consuming. Entering this data means that the data is being duplicated which serves no one. This is an example of a flat file database. As you can see several of the records have been duplicated as the unit price needed to be changed.

Relational Database’s A relational database contains several tables which are linked together by a key field. For example a doctors relational database will have a table for the patients (their name, ID etc.), a table for the medicine ID and a table for the distribution which will contain the patients ID, the medicines ID and the quantity of medicine. In the example below the DocID, PatCode and the MedName are key fields. Here you can see that the DocID is present in both the doctor and prescription table which links them together. The same is said for the PatCode and the MedName which is linking the tables together.

Tools of a database A database has many tools which can increase productivity and reduce time consumption when searching for specific information. Two examples of these tools are queries and validation rules. Queries: Queries separate data within a database that correlates to the specific keyword entered. Once the data is separated all the information that is relevant to your search is shown on the screen. These queries reduce the time and makes it much easier to find specific information. Validation: rules set boundaries for what data can be inputted into a field. For example when inputting and date into a date and time field if the validation rule is ‘20/01/2000 to now’ then that means only dates between 20/01/2000 and the current date will be allowed to stay in the field. Any date that’s before 20/01/2000 wont be valid and will need to be changed.

Why use a relational database? Unlike Flat File database’s relational database’s use several tables which means that it is quicker to find information and there is less of a risk that some data will be duplicated as, for example the doctors database, the patients name and details will only need to be entered into the database once. In a relational database both queries can be performed and reports can be created.

Drawbacks of Using a relational database Relational databases are expensive to set up and maintain. As relational databases are getting more and more complex the skill requirement to create and manage the database increases. Databases that have an external data source may require more powerful servers so responses can be given in a reasonable time. Relational databases require keys to link the tables together but if the key is broken the links between the tables will be severed.

Advantages of Flat file databases All the records are stored in one place You can use a standard spread sheet to store it There is less hardware and software requirements compared to relational databases The skill requirements to handle a flat file database is less than the skills required to handle a relational database

Drawbacks of a Flat file database There is a risk that the information inputted will be duplicated Non of the records are unique They are harder to update compared to a relational database Flat File is poor at processing complex queries There is little security where certain levels of access are required

My recommendation Personally I recommend that you use the relational database because even though more skill is required to create and manage the database the pro’s outweigh the con’s as compared to the flat file, the relational database saves the user time as complex queries can be easily processed by this type of database and there it a very low risk in the duplication of information. Although more powerful hardware is required I think that a relational is the most suitable database for your doctor’s surgery.