Clinical genomics merged repository and partial episode support with support abstract and semantic meaning preserving data sniffers

• US 20070112586A1
• Filed: 11/17/2005
• Published: 05/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dettinger, Richard, Stevens, Richard, Kolz, Daniel, Eggebraaten, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 7,693,857 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

Method, apparatus and article of manufacture for processing and storing medical episode data with workflow status designations. In one embodiment, a patient episode data is moved from differentiated data stores, via an information broker, to assigned data handlers. The data handlers then pass their respective data to a loader and shredder application. The shredder application is tasked with storing the episode data in the database repository and updating each episode'"'"'s status.

Claims

1. A method for storing status-designated health-related episode data comprising:

providing a database which stores health-related episode data from a plurality of data sources;

wherein the episode data includes data for complete episodes and incomplete episodes, an episode being defined by a predefined set of related data, such that an incomplete episode is missing at least a portion of the predefined set of related data in the database and a complete episode includes all of the predefined set of related data in the database;

receiving a plurality of updates to the episode data corresponding to the incomplete episodes; and

for each of the plurality of updates, designating a status of the episode data being updated in the database, the status indicating that the episode data being updated is complete or incomplete.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein an episode contains a plurality of related medical events.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising normalizing the incoming episode data received in the updates.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each update comes from one of a plurality of data sources, and further comprising, for each update from a given data source, shredding the data of the received update in order to normalize the data.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein statuses of the episode data for both complete and incomplete episodes are stored in a status object.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising, in response to receiving at least some of the updates, modifying the status object to reflect one of a complete status and an incomplete status for each episode.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a data abstraction model that models the episode data;

wherein the data abstraction model comprises a plurality of logical field definitions, each of the definitions comprising a logical field name, at least one location attribute identifying a location of episode data corresponding to the logical field name, and a reference to an access method selected from at least two different access method types; and

wherein each of the different access method types defines a different manner of exposing the episode data corresponding to the logical field name of the respective logical field definition.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising providing a query specification, defining an interface to the plurality of logical field definitions thereby allowing abstract queries to be composed on the basis of the plurality of logical field definitions.

9. A tangible computer-readable storage medium containing a program which, when executed by a processor, performs operations for storing status-designated health-related episode data, comprising:

receiving a plurality of updates to health-related episode data corresponding to an incomplete episodes;

wherein the episode data is contained in a database which stores the episode data from a plurality of data sources;

wherein the episode data includes data for complete episodes and incomplete episodes, an episode being defined by a predefined set of related data, such that an incomplete episode is missing at least a portion of the predefined set of related data; and

for each of the plurality of updates, designating the status of the episode data as being updated in the database, the status indicating that the episode data being updated is complete or incomplete.

10. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein an episode contains a plurality of related medical events.

11. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise normalizing the incoming episode data received in the updates.

12. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise, each update comes from one of a plurality of data sources, and further comprising, for each update from a given data source, shredding the data of the received update in order to normalize the data.

13. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein statuses of the episode data for both complete and incomplete episodes are stored in a status object.

14. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprises, in response to receiving at least some of the updates, modifying the status object to reflect one of a complete status and an incomplete status for each episode.

15. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operation further comprise providing a data abstraction model that models the episode data;

wherein the data abstraction model comprises a plurality of logical field definitions, each of the definitions comprising a logical field name, at least one location attribute identifying a location of episode data corresponding to the logical field name, and a reference to an access method selected from at least two different access method types;

wherein each of the different access method types defines a different manner of exposing the episode data corresponding to the logical field name of the respective logical field definition.

16. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise providing a query specification defining an interface to the plurality of logical field definitions thereby allowing abstract queries to be composed on the basis of the plurality of logical field definitions.

17. A system for storing status-designated health-related episode data in a database system, comprising:

an operational datastore is configured to;

receive new episode data from a plurality of external datastores, wherein an episode data includes data for complete episodes and incomplete episodes, the episode being defined by a predefined set of related data, such that an incomplete episode is missing at least a portion of the predefined set of related data; and

store the new episode data in a data structure in the operational datastore; and

a status monitor configured to;

monitor a status of the episode data in the operational datastore, the status indicating that the episode data is complete or incomplete; and

apply the status to the data in the operational datastore responsive to the new episode data being received.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising an information broker, and wherein the external datastores pass their respective data to the information broker, which accepts data from a plurality of data stores with a plurality of data schemas and passes the data to a plurality of data handlers, each data handler configured to accept a specific data schema from the information broker.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a plurality of data handlers which receive the episode data from the information broker.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising a shredder application which receives episode data from the data handlers, parses the episode data received from the data handlers and passes the received data to a loader application.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the status monitor comprises a loader application which monitors the status of the episode data in the operational datastore and applies a status to the episode data, the applied status being selected from one of complete and incomplete, and a status object.

22. The system of claim 17, further comprising a memory containing at least (i) a requesting entity comprising a query specification providing a definition for an abstract query according to logical fields, (ii) a data repository abstraction component comprising mapping rules which map the logical fields to physical entities of data, and (iii) a runtime component for transforming the abstract query into a query consistent with the physical entities of data according to the mapping rules.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the mapping rules comprise an access method for each of the plurality of logical fields and wherein the access methods describe a location of respective physical entities of the data.