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I'm a beginner in databases, but i got a project for a clinic.
I'm working on C#, and MS SQL Server 2008 R2(SP2).

Problem is:
Patients data are huge and it must be safe for years (new recordes will be saved every day)

Every patient record must contains about 60 medical data fields
Is that right to make the patient table contains 60 coulmns or what i should do?


What I have tried:

Patients table will be like this:

Name	Age	Sex	Address		Phone

X	27	Male	there		01234
X2	32	Female	next to X	56789
X3	18	Male	next to X2	10453

and a lot other columns about 60 column, can i just create 60 columns in the same table? 
or create more than one table like six tables and distribute every patient data on these table like one table for every 10 columns and link all with ID?
Posted
Updated 8-Feb-17 3:46am
v3

I would create two tables - One with patient identifying information, and the other with all other fields.

This will make it easier to satisfy HIPAA requirements later.

Table PHI:
PatientID (this should be the biggest integer type supported by your database)
Name
Street
State
Zip
Phone
SSN
DOB

Table Info:
PatientID
EncounterDate
All other columns

At that point, you perform a simple join to marry the tables together in a query.

Feel free to ignore me, though. I've only been working in the health care IT industry on and off for the last 17 years.
 
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v2
Comments
Maciej Los 9-Feb-17 14:32pm    
5ed!
XRushdy 10-Feb-17 3:07am    
And what exactly is HIPAA?
There's not enough information about medical data to determine how many tables you have to create.
At this moment i can say, you have to create at least 2 tables. One for patient data and second for medical data, but it depends on what data have to be stored there.

I'd suggest to read about Database normalization[^]
1NF, 2NF, 3NF and BCNF in Database Normalization | DBMS Tutorial | Studytonight[^]
 
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Quote:
Is that right to make the patient table contains 60 coulmns or what i should do?

From SQL server point of view, 60 columns is not a problem at all.
Quote:
I'm a beginner in databases, but i got a project for a clinic.

This is what worry me.
Designing a database with medical data is not a matter for beginners otherwise than for learning purpose. Such a database is full of pitfalls.
- Security: check if access is authorized
- Security: prevent massive access to data.
- Security: backups
- Design: Most data must have history
- Design: keep track of who made changes
and so on
 
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