A data integration platform for patient-centered e-healthcare and clinical decision support

Abstract

The proliferation of disconnected information systems accumulating increasing volumes of heterogeneous data is a formidable challenge in the healthcare domain. It is necessary to address this challenge as the entire domain gradually transitions into e-healthcare and patient-centered healthcare delivery models. The lack of data integration at systems level prohibits clinicians from building a comprehensive understanding of the patient condition and further deprives patients of developing a holistic awareness of their medical conditions. In this paper, we propose an open data integration platform for patient, clinical, medical and historical data siloed across multiple health information systems. As an open platform, it can accommodate and integrate further heterogeneous data sources such as data streams generated by wearable IoT devices. As an integration platform, it facilitates the centralization of data assets. This centralization empowers every stakeholder in a patient-centered care setting to actively participate in decision-making. A range of analytics and reporting solutions, such as data warehouse, interactive dashboards, and predictive analytics tools, can be deployed upon this open data integration platform. The proposed platform is currently being adapted and implemented to address patient-centered healthcare and clinical decision support requirements in a sports injury clinic at a not-for-profit private hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Use Case based demonstration of the platform’s suitability for holistic information management, decision support, and predictive analytics justify its role in the advancement of e-healthcare.