Unifying heterogeneous distributed clinical data in a relational database.

Abstract

Access to clinical data which are distributed among multiple satellite information systems is crucial to delivering better care and reducing costs in many hospitals and medical centers. An integrated view of these data is needed to reduce the effort of users requiring data from multiple systems. We have addressed the issue of distributed data integration while developing both production and research decision-support applications. We describe an ideal integration solution, obstacles to realizing this solution, and our integration requirements and architecture. Our focus is a description of our specific schema and data integration techniques. We conclude with an analysis of our approach.