Medical Assessment with more than 255 fields

J

Jaz

Greetings;
I have a database that I need to create that has many single checkboxes.
This is a medical assessment and has many different sections to rate. For
instance there is a presenting problem checklist with 50 checkboxes alone and
people can present with multiple problems. From what I count, there are
about 20 different sections all with multiple check boxes. Would you suggest
that I have 20 different tables consisting of each check box? If so, how do
I link this all together so I can print one assessment report with info from
all these tables. And is there a way that I can program the report to only
print items checked off and not every field? Thanks so much for your help.
I am also not that very savvy in Access just yet. Running Access 2003.
 
K

Klatuu

You are trying to create a spreadsheet in a relational database.
Using check boxes for a list like that is not the correct way to design such
a system.
What you should have is two tables.
The first table should have the patient's demographic information.
The second should be an assessment table. It should have on record for each
presenting problem. That record should contain whatever information to a
presentation. If a record for a specifc problem is not in the assessment
table for the patient, that means the patient did not present with the
problem.

Now, what you do need is table of all the possible problems that could be
presented. Here is where you control checking off the list. Depending on
whether the assessment is done using the database in real time or whether a
hard copy worksheet is used, would determine how you contruct your form.

If you can describe the business rules and the assessment procedure, perhaps
I can help with some design ideas.
 
K

Klatuu

Sorry, Mark, but that is not correct.
It is not necessary to have a bunch of check boxes in a table.
Again, Access is not a spreadsheet. It is a relational database. You only
store data that provides information about what has occurred. It makes no
sense to store data about what did not occur.
 
K

Klatuu

You are correct. I misread your closing statement.
What you propose would be the way I would do it.
 
M

Michael Gramelspacher

You are correct. I misread your closing statement.
What you propose would be the way I would do it.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know. I see these tables:

Patients
Assessments
Sections
Checklists
Questions

And these relationships:

Patient Assessments
AssessmentSections
SectionChecklists
ChecklistQuestions
PatientAssessmentResponses

The OP seems to want the responses to always be Yes or No.

It seems to be a bit more than trival. Well, to me at least. We need more
information. Is a section the same as a checklist? Can a section have more
than 1 checklist? Can responses ever be anything other than yes/no?
 
J

Jaz

Thanks Michael for your help. To answer your question, the majority is only
yes/no check boxes. They want it that way because of risk management
purposes. All the necessary assessment indicators that they need to
address/rate are in front of them, so it is either yes/no. There may be the
odd text box here an there for annotation purposes. The clinicians will be
doing this in real time, so what they are wanting is ONE FORM, that they can
just scroll down and simply check off all the pertinant information using
yes/no check.

There are about 10 different sections (i.e. presenting problems, Diagnosis;
Orientation to time & place, social supports) and each of these sections has
at least 15 options (in the form of yes/no checkboxes). I can't do a
combo-box because there can be multiple answers under each section.

How can I create a report from a query when all you are allowed is 255
fields in the query? I have counted and all together there are 475
check-boxes and fields in this form. I will also have to pull up some form
so they can search previous entries for the patient.
 
J

Jaz

ok please forgive me if this sounds like an stupid question, I am a newbie
and really appreciate your patience.....

I think I understuand your structure, however when it comes to the
SectionCheckboxFieldName, so are you saying for each yes/no field that I
have, it will not actually be a field, it will be a record within the
TblSectionCheckList table?

Do you know of any sample database out there with a similar set up?
 
J

Jaz

Sorry...and more question from my last question, if the yes/no fields
actually appear as records within that table, how would this appear on the
form for the clinicians to check off? Will they be able to see all their
"options" if I list them in table?
 
J

Jaz

Wow....thank yo so much for the sample Very kind of you. It does indeed
look tricky. I am going to examine it closer and see if I can figure out
your design. Thanks again so much.
 
M

Michael Gramelspacher

The form and the two subforms are straight forward, if you understand subforms.
If you select a section in the first subform, nothing will show in the second
subform initially. You need to click the Create List command button to fill it
with questions with default responses. I could have made a checkbox for YesNo
or an option group, but then there could never be anything but yes or no, which
is probably not the case. Of course, you could insert another column in the
table for a free-text response in addition to a YesNo response:

Question: Have you ever had an operation? if Yes, explain. Yes No
(explanation)

The tricky part was the query record source for the second subform. It had to
be updateable, and it had to show the sequence number of the question.
 

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