Which of the following best describes the function of an information system that tracks surgical procedures by physician and date?

• A. To store patient demographics
• B. To summarize discharge instructions
• C. To track surgical procedures by physician and date
• D. To index medication orders

Answer: (C)

This is about logging procedural activity so you can search and report on who performed a surgical procedure and when it happened. An information system that tracks procedures by physician and date stores each event with fields like the physician identifier, the date, the patient, and the procedure type. This makes it easy to pull up records for credentialing, workload analysis, scheduling, quality improvement, and auditing—because the data are organized around the specific procedure event and who did it, on what date.

Other data like patient demographics, discharge instructions, or medication orders serve different purposes in their respective areas (identification, care communication, pharmacy management). They aren’t the primary function described here, which is specifically to capture and retrieve surgical events by who performed them and when.