Introduction: We report on a cost-effective easy-access software developed for the functional integration of the clinical records and history of oncologic patients with the management of the Day Hospital of the Radiotherapy Department of the University Hospital A. Gemelli, in Rome.
Material and methods: The software was designed to archive the clinical records and history of oncologic patients and the relative chemotherapy, to manage the examination scheduling, to draw up nursing files with the planned therapy and to make statistical analyses of the department activity. Five forms are available: the patient form, recording patient data; the admission form, recording the type of therapy (e.g., chemotherapy, tests, medical examinations, etc.), the relative cost and chemotherapy protocol, detailing for instance the type of drug; the nursing file, detailing chemotherapy schedule and the dilution of each drug; the menu, to select and retrieve any record. The minimum configuration requires a 386 Intel CPU, 4 Mb RAM and 4 Mb free on the hard disk. The software is the File Maker Pro 2.1 for Windows which can interact with Apple Macintosh computers.
Results: Since October, 1995, we have saved the clinical records of 272 oncologic outpatients (2415 entries in all), with a mean of 201/month. This computer system permitted us to save and retrieve data for both clinical and didactic purposes and to plan our activity.
Conclusions: One year after it was implemented and used in clinical practice, the system is a cost-effective and user-friendly tool for the management of the Radiochemotherapy Day Hospital of our Radiotherapy Department.