Practical output Locally we have an audit of care of ischaemic heart disease.
THis involves (for me) writing code to select all patients who have a summary diagnosis of IHD (Read Coded here as several codes in chapter G....) sorting according to whether they have had an MI or not. For peculiar reasons we are only asked to report a particular age range. In the various groups then we want to report who has received Aspirin or simlar drug as a repeat/recent treatment; divide them into those with high and low cholesterol relative to the current fashion which last time I looked was 5.0, and those taking and not taking a statin or other lowering drug. And their BP by ranges. I tackled that by writing a series of functions, then some spaghetti to tie it together. The report is represented and the logic of the questions is represented by a diagram of a branching tree. At this point we pick up a pen. So I can see some use to the presentation with the icons, and the layout. I think concentrating on some practical reporting requirements is a very useful exercise in the design of a system and its underlying data stores and data access arrangements. -- From one of the Linux desktops of Dr Adrian Midgley http://www.defoam.net/
