general structure of a database

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Hello,

Thank you for your replys on this topic. I understand
that I probably did not explain myself well.

There are 200 patients who will take 3 different medical
tests to measure same disease information. We have 3
readers (resident, physician, or expert) do each test on
same patient so that their results can be compared.

I created a form with a field called readertype that is a
draw down menu for choices of reader 1, 2 and 3. I also
have a field called testtype that is a draw down menu for
choices of test types such as MRI or XRay. Of course, I
have two tables here: tblreadertype tbltesttype for the
choice fields. I have then many variables to measure the
disease. All the measure questions are the same for each
test.

The structure of this database is that each table will
have a patient id entered 9 times. Although the
combination of patient id, testype and readertype will be
unique, the patient id will not be unique. It is easy to
make mistakes for data entry people to enter the data when
they can select the reader type and test type. So, for
data entry purposes, I think it is better to construct 9
distinct tables and forms. The variables in all the
tables should be the same with one variable to distinguish
test type and reader type. Is this correct?

Since I am new to ACCESS, I would like your confirmation
on this. I also want to know if I should use different
disease variables for each table so that R1M_LAD will
refer to Reader1 MRI test results.

I very much appreciate your response.

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[PC Datasheet]

TblPatient
PatientID
FName
LName
Etc

TblMedicalTests
MedicalTestID
TestName

TblReaderType
ReaderTypeID
ReaderType 'resident, physicla and expert

TblReader
ReaderID
ReaderTypeID
FName
LName
etc

TblPatientTest
PatientTestID
PatientID
MedicalTestID
ReaderID
PatientTestResult


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[leaf]

Thank you for the reply, but you did not answer my
questions.

My first question is if you construct one main table
TblPatientTest with built in tables for reader type and
test type, will it be more difficult to enter data and
output data? Because data entry people enter the same
patient id with totally different test results from a
different test type with just one switch choice. It seems
it will be much easier to enter data to a specific form
such as MRITestReader1interpretation and finish that, then
open another form such as MRITestReader2Interpretation and
so on.
My second question is that whether we want to
differentiate variables name for different tables or forms
such as the two forms I mentioned
above "MRIReader1Interpretation."

By the way, we do not record patient names or addresses.
There is only one id associated with a patient and nothing
else.

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