Integration of decentralized clinical data in a data warehouse: a service-oriented design and realization

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Data Management
• Clinical Systems Engineering

Background:

• Integrating data from multiple clinical partners into a unified data warehouse presents significant challenges.
• The Open European Nephrology Science Center (OpEN.SC) serves as a case study for these integration complexities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a general concept for data integration in a clinical data warehouse.
• To describe the difficulties encountered during data integration.
• To conduct a requirements analysis and design a solution for the OpEN.SC system.

Main Methods:

• The study employs a conceptual approach utilizing the Rational Unified Process (RUP).
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is adopted as the architectural paradigm for integration.

Main Results:

• Controllability, transparency, and security are crucial for partner confidence and participation in the OpEN.SC system.
• Reusable, fine-grained components are essential for handling diverse data sources.
• SOA facilitates the implementation of required reusability.

Conclusions:

• Thorough requirements analysis is a critical step in developing data integration processes for health information systems like OpEN.SC.
• A design based on RUP and SOA effectively addresses the identified integration requirements.