PATIENT (2)    FILE (1)

The PATIENT file contains all the patients followed by the medical center/
The ADMISSION sub-field is scheduled to be moved into the new PATIENT
MOVEMENT file by the end of calendar year 1989.  Care should be used
when removing a patient from the PATIENT file since virtually all
other DHCP modules do utilize data from this file.  Of the many fields
in the file you will note that many are preceeded by an asterisk.
Those fields are scheduled to be removed from the file due to either
lack of use or replacement by another field/file in the next release.
Outpatient clinic.  At a minimum each patient entry must have a NAME, DATE
OF BIRTH and SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.  In order to add a new patient to the
PATIENT file the user must also indicate whether or not the patient is
requesting to receive care as a VETERAN of the U.S. Armed Forces and
specify the TYPE of patient being added to the system.  For the most
part the information contained in this file is demographic in nature,
i.e., address, employment, service history, etc., however data
concerning admissions, appointments,etc., is also stored in this file.