Using commercially available tools for multifaceted health assessment: data integration lessons learned

Health monitoring data collected from multiple available intake devices provide a rich resource to support older adult health and wellness. Although large amounts of data can be collected, there is currently a lack of understanding on the integration of these various data sources using commercially available products. This article describes an inexpensive approach to integrating data from multiple sources from a recently completed pilot project that assessed older adult wellness and demonstrates challenges and benefits in pursuing data integration using commercially available products. The data in this project were sourced from electronically captured participant intake surveys and existing commercial software output for vital signs and cognitive function. All the software used for data integration in this project was freeware and was chosen because of its ease of comprehension by novice database users. The methods and results of this approach provide a model for researchers with similar data integration needs to easily replicate this effort at a low cost.