I. Building medical data retrieving application

All generated components are used for building MIS applications, primarily to support doctors’ work. Based on a medical record item in the meta-model, our generator tool creates a database table, a corresponding data object, a Windows form, as well as some other components. The generated form interacts with the database using the data object. Every data object is controlled by the data object model of the central MIS application, which creates data objects, passes them to appropriate forms, receives updated versions from the forms, and saves them. In this way, the generated forms only need to implement a very simple interface for displaying and updating data objects. All generated forms are automatically stored in the same .NET library referenced by the central MIS application, so no further coding is needed to make them available to the MIS.

Figure 10 illustrates the dispatcher form of a central MIS application used at a neurological clinic in Serbia. Patient data is specified in the upper part, in the middle are tabs with different medical record items, while doctor’s license and name are shown in the bottom part. Each tab page contains a data grid displaying medical record items grouped logically. Each column is associated with one medical record item, and each item object is represented in the data grid with its “last-modified” timestamp. The data grid context menu (available through right clicking within the data grid) contains “add”/“edit”/“delete” options. Choosing “add” creates an empty data object for the medical record item of the right-clicked column and passes it to the corresponding Windows form, which is opened. This form is also opened after choosing “edit”, which results in storing the old object with the flag “edited” set and in creation of a new record that contains the edited values. When “delete” is chosen and this action is confirmed, only the flag “deleted” is set for the chosen data object. In other words, “edit” and “delete” operations do not actually destroy any data. This is because MIS systems work with sensitive data, for which a record of changes should be kept. These tab pages and their content are automatically created on startup of the MIS application, based on the generated database tables and the end user access control profile.

Figure 15. Medical data collecting application