A veterinary practice is having a new patient... | Information and Communication Technology (9-1) 0983 | Paper 1 Mock 21 | Theory

Question 1 Report

A veterinary practice is having a new patient record system analysed.

(a) Describe the information the analyst needs to gather about the current system. [3]

(b) The analyst draws a data flow diagram for registering a new pet. Study the diagram.

Identify the external entity, the process and the data store shown in the diagram. [3]

Answer

Answer Details

(a) Information the analyst needs to gather about the current system:

What data is currently recorded for each pet and owner, such as names, addresses, species, breed, age and medical history. [1]
How data currently flows between the reception desk, veterinary staff and the filing system when a pet is registered, seen for an appointment or has treatment recorded. [1]
What problems exist with the current system, such as difficulty finding records quickly, duplicate entries for the same animal, or files being lost or misfiled. [1]

(b) Identifying the DFD components in the diagram:

External entity: Pet Owner (the rectangle on the left). This is the source of data that comes from outside the system boundary. The owner provides the registration details. [1]
Process: Register New Pet (the oval/ellipse in the centre). This is the operation that receives the owner's and pet's details, validates them and creates a new record. [1]
Data store: Pet Records (the open-ended rectangle on the right). This is where the newly created pet and owner information is stored for future retrieval. [1]

A veterinary practice is having a new patient record system analysed. (a) Describe the information the analyst needs to gather about the current system. [3]...