CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Database management systems are usually categorized according to the database model that they support. The data model tends to determine the query languages that are available to access the database. A great deal of the internal engineering of a DBMS, however, is independent of the data model, and is concerned with managing factors such as performance, concurrency, integrity, and recovery from hardware failures. In these areas there are large differences between products Database normalization, sometimes referred to as canonical synthesis, is a technique for designing relational database tables to minimize duplication of information and, in so doing, to safeguard the database against certain types of logical or structural problems, namely data anomalies. For example, when multiple instances of a given piece of information occur in a table, the possibility exists that these instances will not be kept consistent when the data within the table is updated, leading to a loss of data integrity.
A table that is sufficiently normalized is less vulnerable to problems of this kind, because its structure reflects the basic assumptions for when multiple instances of the same information should be represented by a single instance only. A Hospital Administration system (HAS), variously also called clinical information system (CIS) is a comprehensive, integrated information system designed to manage the administrative, financial and clinical aspects of a hospital. This encompasses paper-based information processing as well as data processing machines. Main phases of database development and good practice selection is outlines below:
(1) introductory analysis,
(2) questionnaire preparation and pilot phase,
(3) project self-evaluation process,
(4) database improvements according to feedback.
