Re: Fwd: Re: [Gnumed-devel] Drug database/browser/prescription design

[Horst Herb]

Ian Haywood wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 10, 2002 at 11:40:27AM +1000, richard terry wrote:


> The database structure in CVS is an 'idealised' drug database. It bears
> no relationship to the drugbrowser and prescription screen. Currently,
> there is no way to 'fill' it with data, so its usefulness is limited.
>
> So we are stuck with using specific drug databases on the backend: MIMS
> and AMIS. The danger is these differences can work their way through,


No, no, no! The drug database structure is highly normalised for a
purpose: by atomizing information that way, we should be able to import
information from whatever source we get. Then, depending on the
granularity of the information, you will be able to do more or less with
it.

The "common API" is already there - the highly normalized structure. ALl
you need is fallback behaviour in the client for the cases when the
original data is not that normalized and a few tables remain empty.

All we need for example for MIMS is a nice import script, which
shouldn't be a problem at all. MIMS is fairly normalized, I can't see a
problem there. However, I am longing to replace it with the independend
and rather generic AMH database.

Horst