Abstract
Background/Aims The creation and implementation of a research Virtual Data Warehouse (VDW) has shown demonstrable benefits for healthcare researchers. However, the VDW’s potential may be diminished to the extent its accessibility is limited outside of the research sphere. The most obvious limitation is in cases where VDW data can only be accessed via statistical software packages (such as SAS) or the use of Structured Query Language (SQL). This may inhibit access to data by interested, authorized parties who lack training in those computer languages. The potential exists for a research site to leverage the VDW into a more open and accessible reporting system, provided that its implementation meets the following criteria:
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its data is hosted on a relational database management system (RDBMS);
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its design schema reasonably well adheres to the principles of data normalization;
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the site implementing the VDW has access to a standardized library of medical terminology that can be used to validate data and display it in a hierarchical manner.
The aim is to leverage the existing VDW data model to produce a flexible and easily accessible reporting system.
Methods Data from a research site’s VDW meeting the above criteria was conformed to the fact/dimension data model pioneered by Ralph Kimball and widely used in the “business intelligence” technology field. Existing VDW subject matters (patients, encounters, diagnoses and procedures) were converted to a fact table format through the creation of views. Hierarchical representations of key attributes (such as diagnosis and procedure codes, date of service and patient location) were extracted from the Metathesaurus of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to populate dimension tables.
Results Using the above approach, the research site was able to create a data “cube” with an intuitive interface that facilitates data browsing, navigation of code hierarchy trees, unlimited pivoting of rows and columns, and the ability to view summary measures at various levels of aggregation.
Discussion With a modest amount of development and access to medical data libraries, a research site’s Virtual Data Warehouse VDW can be leveraged into a user-friendly data resource with modern reporting capabilities.
