Patient Administration Systems (often abbreviated to PAS) developed out of the automation of administrative paperwork in healthcare organisations, particularly hospitals, and are one of the core components of a

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

's IT infrastructure. The PAS records the

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health c ...

demographics Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

(e.g. name, home address, date of birth) and details all patient contact with the hospital, both outpatient and inpatient. PAS systems are often criticised for providing only administrative functionality to hospitals, however attempts to provide more clinical and operational functionality have often been expensive failures.

History

In the UK, IRC PAS was developed at North Staffordshire Health Authority in the late 1960s. It became widely used within the NHS and was supported commercially by ICL.

Siemens Nixdorf Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme, AG (SNI) was formed in 1990 by the merger of Nixdorf Computer and the Data Information Services (DIS) division of Siemens. It functioned as a separate company within Siemens. It was the largest information ...

acquired the PAS in 1996 but dropped support in 1998. The

NPfIT The NHS Connecting for Health (CFH) agency was part of the UK Department of Health and was formed on 1 April 2005, having replaced the former NHS Information Authority. It was part of the Department of Health Informatics Directorate, with the rol ...

project was claimed to have deployed a total 141 new generation PAS by 2008 but this figure had risen to only 170 by 2010.

Standard PAS Functionality

PAS Systems provide a number of core essential functions to hospitals: #

Master Patient Index An enterprise master patient index or enterprise-wide master patient index (EMPI) is a patient database used by healthcare organizations to maintain accurate medical data across its various departments. Patients are assigned a unique identifier, so ...

# Appointment Booking # Waiting List Management # Record of Patient Activity # Activity Returns/Billing # Reporting # Admission

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patient Administration System Electronic health records Health informatics