Data base design for infectious disease control.

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of a problem requiring the design of a decision support system (DSS) to be used for infectious disease control at a Veterans Administration hospital. An overview of the DSS selected for this application is presented. The major design question addressed is that of determining the data base schema. An automated network data base design technique is presented along with a description of its use in actually designing a data base required for monitoring infectious disease control. This technique can generate data bases containing large numbers of data items and set relationships, while maintaining several useful properties within the data structure.