Information System for Lawrence Dental Clinic - Essay Example

Also weekly charts will be created so every dentist can see how many appointments he or she will have this week. Information about previous appointments and treatment also will be stored in Information System. So when returning patient comes dentist will have information about his or her problems even if patient has forgotten it. A data flow diagram (DFD) for the Information System for Lawrence Dental Clinic is a graphical representation of the "flow" of data through an information system. A data flow diagram can also be used for the visualization of data processing (structured design).

It is common practice for a designer to draw a context-level DFD first which shows the interaction between the system and outside entities. This context-level DFD is then "exploded" to show more detail of the system being modeled. Data flow diagrams (DFDs) are one of the three essential perspectives of SSADM. Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) is a method used in the Information System for Lawrence Dental Clinic for analysis and design of system development. The method was launched in 1981 and is open standard.

(Wikipedia, 2006) The sponsor of a project of the Information System for Lawrence Dental Clinic and the end users will need to be briefed and consulted throughout all stages of a systems evolution. With a dataflow diagram, users are able to visualize how the system will operate, what the system will accomplish and how the system will be implemented. Old system dataflow diagrams can be drawn up and compared with the new systems dataflow diagrams to draw comparisons to implement a more efficient system.

Dataflow diagrams can be used to provide the end user with a physical idea of where the data they input, ultimately has an effect upon the structure of the whole system from order to dispatch to restock how any system is developed can be determined through a dataflow diagram. (Wikipedia, 2006)A data flow diagram of the Information System for Lawrence Dental Clinic illustrates the processes, data stores, and external entities in a business or other system and the connecting data flows.The four components of a data flow diagram (DFD) are:External Entities/Terminators/Sources/Sinks (represented by a square or oval)Processes (represented by a circle or rounded rectangle)Data Flows (represented by an arrow)Data Stores (represented by two parallel lines, sometimes