Patient administration system

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Patient Administration Systems (often abbreviated to PAS) developed out of the automation of administrative paperwork in healthcare organisations, particularly hospitals, and are one of the core components of a hospital's IT infrastructure. The PAS records the patient's demographics (e.g. name, home address, date of birth) and details all patient contact with the hospital, both outpatient and inpatient.^[1]

PAS systems are often criticised for providing only administrative functionality to hospitals, however attempts to provide more clinical and operational functionality have often been expensive failures.

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In the UK, IRC PAS was developed at North Staffordshire Health Authority in the late 1960s.^[2] It became widely used within the NHS and was supported commercially by ICL. Siemens Nixdorf acquired the PAS in 1996 but dropped support in 1998.^[3] The NPfIT project was claimed to have deployed a total 141 new generation PAS by 2008 ^[4] but this figure had risen to only 170 by 2010.^[5]

PAS Systems provide a number of core essential functions to hospitals:

1. Master Patient Index
2. Appointment Booking
3. Waiting List Management
4. Record of Patient Activity
5. Activity Returns/Billing
6. Reporting
7. Admission