title: A database system for abstract selection for a major anesthesia society meeting.
abstract: Until the present time, record keeping for abstract selection for major anesthesia meetings has been performed by manual methods - paper, pen, and typewriter. We describe the construction and implementation of a microcomputer based system to facilitate data recording, form-letter generation, and program construction. Based on MicroPro's WordStar, InfoStar, MailMerge series, the database has reduced the total effort required to construct the final program from 1.5 hours per abstract submitted for the 1984 meeting to 0.7 hours for the 1986 meeting. Problems encountered were mastery of the system by operating personnel, floppy disk overflow, and data loss of unknown etiology. The significant time savings attest to the value of the system.
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D000776:Anesthesiology; D007256:Information Systems; D012955:Societies, Medical; D012984:Software