Currently we have a working "Patient Demographics" interface in Gnumed, and a separate (unconnected) Contacts tab. There is currently no interface for adding staff demographic records (although we are already committed to requiring that they exist)

However the database design is quite different: all demographic information: patients, clinic staff and contacts is lumped together in the same group of tables. There is no reason why we can't have separate interfaces for the 3 groups, but the code behind them will be pretty much identical, and they will display very odd behaviour: patients will show up in contact searches, and nothing stops the user from opening up patient files on their contact entries.

We could mark the records to enforce this separation, but this runs contrary to the previous decision (to lump them all) Alternatively we could have a single demographics screen (reflecting the database design), patient data would only be created when required, (an "open patient file" button perhaps) This means moving search functionality from the top toolbar to the demographics screen, as we need to be able to search without necessarily opening the selectd result as a patient.

-- IanHaywood - 08 Apr 2004