for this case assignment, assume the role of a lead person on a technology review committee at a multi-facility regional hospital. the committee has been tasked with evaluating the plausibility and possible selection of a new health information system that will enable the hospital to electronically collect and share patient medical history information among its various hospital centers and departments. currently, each hospital center maintains paper copies and files of patient records, which are separately managed and stored at each facility. very few of the electronically based information system are integrated between the various centers and locations. to add to the challenge, the cio informs that most of the members on the committee have very limited experience with information systems and databases. however, the cio is aware that i am studying health informatics, so she has asked to help familiarize the committee with fundamental concepts related to databases systems and relevant health information standards. specifically, the cio (and professor) requests a two (full) page paper for presentation to the committee that provides a good overview of the following: * fundamentals of database characteristics and structure. * various types of medical data and information records relevant to this project. * the importance of uniform terminology, coding and standardization of the data. * various information standards and organizations that may be applicable, and possibly required, for this project. *references: 1. beaumont, r(2000)database and database management systems http://www.robin-beaumont.co.uk/virtualclassroom/chap7/s2/dbcon1.pdf 2. mccreath, e.(2002)lecture notes for comp1200: perspectives on computing, information systems database basics.http://cs.anu.edu.au/student/comp1200/lectures/10.2-1up.pdf 3. szolovits, p(2003)nature of medical data. mit, intro to medical informatics: lecture-2. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/courses/6872/2003/slides/lecture2-print.pdf 4. health level seven: links to standards developers.http://www.hl7.org/standards/developer.htm