title: Development of a Cost-Effective Database Software for Psychiatric Research: A Study From Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital creator: Karakkamandapam, Sabu creator: Nair, Narayanan Sree Kumaran creator: Sharma, PSVN subject: Online Journal of Health and Allied Sciences description: Background: Technological progression made drastic changes in health care. Still there is a growing concern about proper utilization of health information within hospitals for various research activities. Huge volumes of such health information in majority of hospitals are redundant due to lack of appropriate and cost-effective technological tools for retrieving relevant health information for research purpose. Objective: To develop a cost-effective and user-friendly computerized medical record database for psychiatry using available technology with the department. Methodology: Study performed at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Udupi district of South India. Various datasets from psychiatry medical records were utilized for the design and creation of database. A computerized database called PsyCase was developed with the help of technology available within the department. A 4612 patient’s data were entered into the PsyCase and subjected to various analyses. Results: Applications of PsyCase in various epidemiological studies were explored through performing numerous analyses with actual data. PsyCase was found effective in supporting psychiatric research as well as routine clinical and administrative activities. Conclusion: This study emphasizes need of appropriate use of technology available within a healthcare system to facilitate medical research in psychiatry and role of health information professional in such initiatives. Healthcare organization must focus on collective utilization of resources within the system to improve the utilization of health information for medical research. publisher: Dr. B.S. Kakkilaya contributor: Kakkilaya, Dr. Srinivas date: 2010-10-15 type: Journal (On-line/Unpaginated) type: PeerReviewed format: application/pdf identifier: http://cogprints.org/7112/1/2010-3-8.pdf identifier: Karakkamandapam, Sabu and Nair, Narayanan Sree Kumaran and Sharma, PSVN (2010) Development of a Cost-Effective Database Software for Psychiatric Research: A Study From Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital. [Journal (On-line/Unpaginated)] relation: http://cogprints.org/7112/