Metadata & Master Data Management

Hmmmm...interesting topic, eh? Why bother? What can I do? How much is it going to cost me?

Well folks, I am going to tell you a secret. This is a secret that we, I mean technologists, have hidden from you for long. Much like the wall street "experts" who are now "fixing" the problems they created in the first place and getting paid for it, we are doing the exact same thing. This is an issue that we created (I mean technologists). Now we have cool technologies like metadata repositories and dictionaries that can give you standardized data definitions across the enterprise, but we'll need you to pay us for the "cool technology" we created to solve "your issues"!

Why bother?
Answer is simple. Have you ever had Gatorade? Yellow, Blue, Orange? Well if you have, you get different "flavors" of the same thing. Same thing with business intelligence. If you want to call something a pot, call it a pot. Don't call it pot in one place, a vessel in another and a container in another place. Unfortunately, the reality is just that. A pot is called a pot in one system, a vessel in another and a container in a third. If you tried to print out the value of a "pot" for your CEO to see, you would have to sit there and explain "well, it is the same thing, but it may be called a container on page 2"! You can imagine the reaction. Enter metadata and masterdata management! We take the pots and the containers and the vessels, call it a pot, make sure the attributes of all three are the same, store it in a dictionary and charge you a couple of millions for it! Sound cool? No?

What can I do?
There are things you can do and not break the bank while doing it. Old fashioned discipline and planning, for example. And you, as the healthcare exec, is in luck! Because, if you are like most companies, you have a clean slate to start with, in terms of informatics. So, with a little bit of planning upfront, you can avoid a lot of costs later. Incorporate metadata/master data management into your informatics initiative early on. In other words, don't build a warehouse without it! Just like you put planning and thought into collecting your measures, think of having standard data definitions across the enterprise. Reach out to folks like SNOMED to see what they are doing. Trust me, your upfront costs will be a drop in the bucket if you have to do it as an afterthought. It will also ensure better data quality as the data won't get into your system without rationalizing with your dictionary first.

So when your buddy from the other hospital is worried about his/her metadata, you can simply say, "we have incorporated that into the "front end" of our process", take a long hard look at the fairway, judge the wind speed and let it rip!

Acquire, Integrate, Deliver

As the healthcare informatics initiatives heat up and the EMR market is getting flooded with new software, the visionary in you is probably going, "what am I going to do with all this data"? And your inner visionary would be right.

Standardized Data Definitions & why it's important
It's important to think about how to gather information, organize it and disseminate it in a meaningful way. SDD helps reduce communication errors and improves interoperability with other systems. Standardized Data Definitions is one important step towards achieving this goal. Thinking about this ahead of time, when you are purchasing EMR or CPOE software, will help you get rid of headaches later down the line. The first step to achieving this is coming up with the data definitions themselves. Don't panic! People are already working on it. SNOMED is one of them. They have already achieved success in Clinical Terms definitions. SNOMED CT is available at http://www.ihtsdo.org/ (International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization).

Ontologies
In one of my previous posts, I said "whack us", if we talk about Ontologies. Well, since you are reading this over a computer and there is no great threat of bodily harm to me at this point, I am going to say it. What is an Ontology? The core meaning within computer science is a model for describing the world that consists of a set of types, properties, and relationship types (according to Wikipedia). Why is it important for healthcare? As we generate more and more data, organizing data in an effective manner is essential to a great informatics system. For example, think of a patient as an ontology. It is also a "complex" ontology, meaning it may have more than one "simple" ontology associated with it. For example, vitals of a patient may be considered a simple ontology. Organizing data in ontologies help us define complex data relationships and easier extraction points.

Summary of the matter is this: If we plan upfront, we can deliver better information at the end. There might be painstaking detail to go through in the beginning, but without it, our informatics initiatives fail.

Next week: Interoperability