A system, apparatus and method are provided that enable the receipt of answers to questions from users and to make those answers persistent within a generalized database schema. A set of one or more middleware entities and components are provided to process the user's answers that are submitted to the system. The middleware entities differentiate one user from another user by use of a session. Different sets of questions are grouped into encounters, and the answers to the questions for a particular encounter are given a unique identifier. The unique identifier can be used to identify the user and/or the particular encounter. The answers to the questions can be retrieved and viewed in numerous ways, such as by user, by encounter, by question, by question type, by answer, by answer type, etc. The selection of database schema and the structure of the middleware enables the system to handle any answer to any question without requiring the restructuring of the database or database schema.