DW4TR: A Data Warehouse for Translational Research

• Published in: Journal of biomedical informatics Vol. 44; no. 6; pp. 1004 - 1019
• Main Authors: Hu, Hai, Correll, Mick, Kvecher, Leonid, Osmond, Michelle, Clark, Jim, Bekhash, Anthony, Schwab, Gwendolyn, Gao, De, Gao, Jun, Kubatin, Vladimir, Shriver, Craig D., Hooke, Jeffrey A., Maxwell, Larry G., Kovatich, Albert J., Sheldon, Jonathan G., Liebman, Michael N., Mural, Richard J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.12.2011
• Subjects: Data Warehouse; Electronic Health Records; Humans; Medical Informatics Applications; Ontology; Patient-centric data model; Software; Translational Medical Research; Translational research; User interface; User-Computer Interface; Data Warehouse; Translational research; Patient-centric data model; Ontology; User interface
• ISSN: 1532-0464; 1532-0480; 1532-0480
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2011.08.003

[Display omitted] ► An extensible patient-centric clinical data model. ► A specimen-centric molecular data model. ► A temporal data model. ► An Aggregated Biomedical-Information Browser targeting clinicians and scientists. ► An Individual Subject Information Viewer. The linkage between the clinical and laboratory research domains is a key issue in translational research. Integration of clinicopathologic data alone is a major task given the number of data elements involved. For a translational research environment, it is critical to make these data usable at the point-of-need. Individual systems have been developed to meet the needs of particular projects though the need for a generalizable system has been recognized. Increased use of Electronic Medical Record data in translational research will demand generalizing the system for integrating clinical data to support the study of a broad range of human diseases. To ultimately satisfy these needs, we have developed a system to support multiple translational research projects. This system, the Data Warehouse for Translational Research (DW4TR), is based on a light-weight, patient-centric modularly-structured clinical data model and a specimen-centric molecular data model. The temporal relationships of the data are also part of the model. The data are accessed through an interface composed of an Aggregated Biomedical-Information Browser (ABB) and an Individual Subject Information Viewer (ISIV) which target general users. The system was developed to support a breast cancer translational research program and has been extended to support a gynecological disease program. Further extensions of the DW4TR are underway. We believe that the DW4TR will play an important role in translational research across multiple disease types.