Clinical Care And Research Using MEDUS/A, A Medically Oriented Data Base Management System

Health care research often requires the acquisition of data from institutions and processes where the primary concern is the care of patients and the research is secondary. Under these circumstances, the collection and management of information for research must cooperate with the use of the same information for patient care. We present a data base management system, MEDUS/A, designed to meet the conditions imposed by the cooperative use of the data. Our experience with two research projects is described in view of the data model, data acquisition and reporting facilities, access control facilities, query capabilities and data analysis capabilities of MEDUS/A.