Patient/Study Design Concept

[Chris C via AccessMonster.com]

All,

I am beginning a project for a research facility where they will be tracking
surveys and studies by their patients.

To begin, the norm for this sort of project.... One patient can be part of
many studies, and one study can contain many patients (many to many)

There will be 15 different types of studies, each with different criteria,
questions and answers.

The user would like to view the patient's personal info at the top of a form,
then have subforms available for each of the studies that the participant is
in.

What would be the best way to go about this? Would it be best to create 15
different tables for the studies? I feel this is one route since each study
is completely different.

What would be the best way, once the tables are laid out, to create forms for
the user to easily navigate and enter/edit data? (These studies might also be
relayed over the phone so the user needs quick access to each form)

Thank you very much in advance for your replies - your help is greatly
appreciated.

Chris

 

[Duane Hookom]

Have you reviewed "At Your Survey" from
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/OtherLibraries.asp#Hookom,Duane?

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Duane's "At Your Survey" provides an excellect example of how you can
structure an application that manages multiple studies, exams, surveys, etc.

Any time you are considering "going wide" with a design (add one more column
to add one more question; add one more table to handle one more category),
it's time to step back and look into normalization.

While you'd probably need the "wide" design if you were working with a
spreadsheet, Access is a relational database. You'll only get the benefits
and features of Access if you design for it, rather than for a spreadsheet.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
<Office/Access MVP>