Progress Report on Nationwide Networking System of Perinatal Summary Records

A pilot system of nationwide networking of perinatal records, which is operational at Osaka University Computation Center, is introduced. The system was developed mainly to analyze operating problems inherent in such a nationwide data entry system. It provides a handy tool for entry and analysis of perinatal summary records by using a time-sharing terminal. Great care was taken in data security. To each user and each item, security levels are assigned. Users can not see detailed values of items which have a higher security level than their own. All records and items are available for statistical calculations, however. The system was tested by 8 university hospitals (Univ. of Tokyo, Nihon Univ., Keio Univ., Hamamatsu Univ., Kitazato Univ., Univ. of Osaka, Tottori Univ. and Kyushu Univ.), who reported success in using the system while incurring only low running costs.