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

• US 7,693,857 B2
• Filed: 11/17/2005
• Issued: 04/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Eggebraaten, Thomas J., Kolz, Daniel P., Dettinger, Richard D., Stevens, Richard J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham; John R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Richardson; James E
• Application Number:
  US11/282,094
• Publication Number:
  US 20070112586A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,601 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707 8- 10, 707/100, 707/101, 707/104.1, 707200-204, 705/1, 705/2
• US Class Current: 707/803
• 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 computer-implemented method for storing status-designated health-related episode data comprising configuring one or more processors to perform an operation comprising:

providing a database which stores health-related episode data from a plurality of data sources, wherein each of the plurality of data sources stores a portion of the health-related episode data as a different data format;

wherein the episode data includes data for complete episodes and incomplete episodes, an episode containing data for a plurality of related medical events, such that an incomplete episode is missing, from the database, data for at least one of the related medical events and a complete episode includes, in the database, data for all of the plurality of related medical events;

for each of the incomplete episodes, receiving a plurality of updates from the plurality of data sources;

normalizing the data received in the updates to conform to a common schema;

evaluating, by operation of the one or more computer processors, the stored health-related episode data and the data received in the updates from the plurality of data sources to determine an appropriate status for each of the incomplete episodes as a result of the updates; 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, based on the respective determined appropriate status;

wherein evaluating the stored health-related episode data and the data received in the updates from the plurality of data sources to determine an appropriate status for each of the incomplete episodes as a result of the updates comprises;

identifying stored health-related episode data that is part of the same episode as the data received in the updates; and

determining, for at least one of the incomplete episodes and by operation of the one or more computer processors, an appropriate status of incomplete upon determining that the data received in the updates is a portion of an episode for which partial episodic data is found in the stored health-related episode data, but which does not complete the episode.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the operation further comprises, for each update from a given data source, shredding the data of the received update in order to normalize the data.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein statuses of the episode data for both complete and incomplete episodes are stored in a status object.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the operation 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.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the operation further comprises:

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.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the operation further comprises 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.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein evaluating the stored health-related episode data and the data received in the updates from the plurality of data sources to determine an appropriate status for each of the incomplete episodes as a result of the updates comprises:

determining, for each of the incomplete episodes and by operation of the one or more computer processors, an appropriate status of incomplete upon determining that the data received in the updates is a first portion of an episode.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein evaluating the stored health-related episode data and the data received in the updates from the plurality of data sources to determine an appropriate status for each of the incomplete episodes as a result of the updates comprises:

identifying stored health-related episode data that is part of the same episode as the data received in the updates; and

determining, for each of the incomplete episodes and by operation of the one or more computer processors, an appropriate status of complete upon determining that the data received in the updates is a final portion of an episode for which partial episodic data is found in the stored health-related episode data.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the operation further comprises:

analyzing, by a sniffer, the normalized data received in the updates from the plurality of data sources and having designated statuses to perform a predefined action upon determining that a predefined condition is satisfied.