I am trying to develop a database that will help me track patients who are waiting for, then have, an organ transplant. I am just in the beginning stages of planning it out but have a question about 2 different things.
1. I would like to follow various lab tests at specific intervals. For example, 12 hours after surgery, 24 hours after, 7 days after, etc. Would I have a different table for each lab test then a row for each patient and a field for each time interval?
2. I am also tracking several things related to the actual surgery. Examples are whether the patient had a blood transfusion or not during surgery, and if so, how many; who the anesthesiologist was, and how long the surgery lasted. Would I have a different table for each surgery with a row for each patient and a field for each thing I would like to track?

I am not using any patient identifiers (name, SSN, etc) but rather giving them a name based on their appearance in our program. So, the first patient we see is simply named "One", the second "Two" and so on. The point is not to relate this to any specific patient but to see how other things may relate to each other. An example of this would be looking to see whether length of surgery makes any difference in their length of stay.

I have read many of the informational articles, files and websites over and over but can't seem to work this out in my head. I would love to take a class in Access but haven't looked into that yet. Any suggestions on where to go for that? I was thinking my local community college would be a choice.

Thanks in advance, hope this makes sense!

This post has been edited by GroverParkGeorge: Mar 31 2012, 08:26 PM

Hi Lisa,

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welcome2UA.gif)

What version of Access are you using? Please remember to select the version number in case it becomes relevant to the discussion.

I would also recommend taking a class or reading a book on Relational Database Design separate from the Access class.

I believe the success of a database application firmly relies on the design of the data structure. For starters, you can read about the "Normalization" principles.

Just my 2 cents... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/2cents.gif)

PMFJI:


Here's a 'starter' list of articles to help you follow DB's advice.

• Database planning tutorial Part I
• Database planning tutorial Part II
• argeedblu's FAQ on Design Strategies
• Noah's FAQ on Normalization
• Jerry's FAQ on Normalization
• GroverParkGeorge's PDF on Normalization
• Jerry’s FAQ on Fully Qualified Naming
• Jerry's FAQ on Glossary
• Danny's FAQ on Reserved Words
• Autonumbers - What They Are / Are Not
• Primary Keys - Natural vs Surrogate
• Naming Conventions - Hungarian Notation
• Crystal's ACCESS Basics for Programming
• MSKB 283878: Description of the database normalization basics
  
• Presentation and sample db
• Crystal's ACCESS Basics for Programming
  
• Roger Carlson’s Blog on Normalization