A managed care workstation for support of ambulatory care in Veterans Health Administration medical centers

This paper describes the development of a Managed Care Workstation for implementation in a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. Each VA hospital information system contains a wealth of information in a comprehensive and well integrated M database, however, a clinician's access to the information is hampered by a lack of usable database tools. The Managed Care Workstation is designed to enhance access to VA databases. The workstation uses M (Mumps) and SQL to present the VA's M hierarchical database as relational tables on the workstation. This work reveals the benefits of using a SQL-M workstation to access data contained in an M based hospital information system and demonstrates how the workstation architecture supports the information model necessary for management of patient care outcomes.