How to develop an application for a hospital

One of my friend is starting a hospital and I have to develop a management system from scratch. The hospital is in a remote area where there is internet connectivity available but it isn't very fast and reliable. I have to deploy a system containing 2 seperate modules.

1. Reception Module
2. Doctor Module

1) My question is should I develop a desktop application(.net) or a web application (php|RoR) !

2) What would be pros and cons for each !

3) How to connect the database with the application.

Please mention the best framework for this sort of application

Note: I cannot deploy a server as the budget is quite low !

Thanks :)