Creating Data Extracts From Multiple EHR Systems and Unified Data Warehouse Creation

The client is known for providing excellent clinical and compassionate care for its patients in the Philadelphia region, educating the health professionals of tomorrow in a variety of disciplines, and discovering new knowledge.

With 30,000+ people reimagining health care, education, and discovery, the client continues to top the list of hospitals in Pennsylvania (3rd) and the Philadelphia metro area (2nd) in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual listing of the best hospitals and specialties.

Key Challenges

• The client’s hospitals are spread across multiple locations, with each location having different EHRs in use
• Each location has its own database with no single consolidated place to get all data
• One of the biggest challenges was the difficulty in handling patients merging across the different systems used in the different locations

Solution Approach

314e Corporation undertook the project to extract patient data from the various EHR software and merge them in a single data warehouse. A P360 data warehouse was designed to host the data from multiple systems on the Netezza Server. The design was based on a hybrid approach of dimensional modeling/workflow design with fact tables and dimensions. Some of the identity mappings, such as EMPI and provider mapping, were resolved using EMPI and identity. Custom algorithms were used to deidentify the PHI data based on the user roles. The ETL framework for loading the data was designed, and several dozen views based on workflows such as admission, lab results, procedure orders, clinical findings, encounter information, billing data, problem list, medical history, social history, and others were created for user consumption.

Business Outcomes

The solution provided by the 314e team allowed a unified organization-wide view of patient data – clinical and financial, in one place. This allowed the client to have better patient care and resource savings.