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FYP Final Report v1.0.0
Copyright and All Rights Reserved To: Pee-Lo Team @2003/04
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2.2 The Ideal Health Services in Malaysia
One of the most important things that all health institutions in Malaysia should do is to share their
patient records with other health institutions within the country. The reason being so is that
patients do not stay in one place forever. Sharing of patient information (with certain degree of
security measures) will enable the patient to feel free to move around within the country (and
around the world) and can still have access to their health information.
The ideal health services should include the following criteria: 1) a standardized representation of
data: universal data representation, 2) patient information is available disregard of the patient’s
geographical location: availability of data, 3) the information should be retrievable with the shortest
and easiest way even in the most remote places in the world: accessibility of data, 4) the
information can be updated anywhere and at anytime: consistency of the data.
Thus far, no health institution has yet to provide such a solution. Each health institution is only
considering on how to make the information publicly available within the organization or premise
and not to any other institution; not even the patients itself.
An ideal health service is a combination of both good health care and excellent availability of
information. Good health care can be portrayed by having good doctors, medical facilities and
such. Excellent availability of information will rely heavily on information sharing among health
institutions in a uniformed way.
The next section will be focusing on the four aforementioned criteria thus becoming our problem
statements from this point forward.
2.2.1 Universal Data Representation
The atomic level of information will be data. Data, in the simplest explanation, will be a collection
of raw material without meaning. Data is like a piece of a Lego building block where a piece of it
tells nothing. Information, on the other hand is a stream of data that has been pieced together to
carry a certain meaning. Analogy: Information is like a model constructed from many pieces of
Lego building block.
Data is stored in a ‘box’ called database. These databases are the data repository. Information is
formed by obtaining the right data from the database, format or interpret it so that when it is
published, it becomes information. So we can easily conclude that data forms information.
But how are we supposed to store these data in the database? Giant software companies have
been providing us with a lot of variant of database management system (DBMS) to solve the
problem. Each of these DBMS has its propriety design patterned. In short, the format of storing
data in each DBMS defers. As an analogy, one company comes out with a rectangle Lego block of
3cm in height, 5cm in width and 10cm in length. Another company produces a rectangle Lego
block at dimensions totally different from the first company. This makes the builder having to
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