Computerized acquisition and elaboration of clinical data in rheumatology during ten years: state of art and prospectives

Abstract

The well known complexity to collect the clinical data of patients and in particular in the area of rheumathology push us to develop a computerized clinical chart in order to facilitate the classification, evaluation and monitoring of these patients. The proposed computerized clinical chart is easy to use but at the same time is a very potent tool that allow the clinicians to organize the classic rheumathological pathologies as well as the more complexes or even rare. The proposed clinical chart is based on a relational database (FileMaker Pro 5.0v1) available for both the actual operative systems implemented on personal computers (Windows and Macintosh); this allow the full compatibility among the two systems, the possibility of exchanging data without any loss of information. The computerized clinical chart is structured on modules for specific pathologies and for homogeneous groups of illnesses. Basically the modules are defined correlated files of data for a specific pathology but that can be used also as a common pool for different pathologies. Our experience, based on ten years of use, indicates in the computerized rheumathological clinical chart an indispensable tool for rheumathologists with a real friendly use.