Federated Data Warehouse Approach to Support the National and International Interoperability of Healthcare Information Systems
Nevena Stolba, A Min Tjoa, Thomas A. Mueck, Marko Banek · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · 2007
The interoperability of medical information systems is gaining more attention as the need for the collaboration in healthcare domain increases.Consolidation of distributed patient data and building a sustainable e-health system is the major research challenge.In order to overcome institutional barriers and competences for changes across sectors, standardized data structures and corresponding underlying infrastructure are needed.A concisely defined information network for the exchange of sensitive patient's data is a significant step towards enabling national and international cooperation.In this paper, we discuss the challenges and the advantages of the healthcare information integration into a federated data warehouse (DWH).We present technical and organizational aspects for creation of Austrian healthcare information network, and describe a scenario-based federation of Austrian health-insurance DWHs in compliance with the national governing framework for electronic exchange of patient-related data.This example will illustrate the benefits of standardized, identifiable and secure consolidation of the local DWHs and promote innovation in the public sector.