Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE B.51
Healthcare information factory users.
level. The spiral development approach is also used to build the textual database. And finally, the city
approach is used to build the collective common data warehouse.
Healthcare information factory users
At first glance the healthcare information factory appears to be mysterious and alien, because most
people have not seen or even considered such a structure. A good way to envision the healthcare
information factory and to make it come alive is to understand the healthcare information factory
through the many users of the healthcare information factory. There are some predictable types of
users found in the healthcare information factory, as shown in
Figure B.51
.
There are at least five types of users found in the healthcare information factory. Looking from
left to right in
Figure B.51
, these users are:
●
The operational user (typically a doctor or a nurse).
●
The farmer (typically an accountant).
●
The explorer (typically a researcher).
●
The miner (typically a researcher steeped in the discipline of statistics).
●
The tourist (typically a secretary or a system programmer).
Each of the different type of user has its own characteristics.
The most basic user of the healthcare information factory is the operational, or functional, user
(
Figure B.52
).
The operational user is the user the closest to the episode of care. The operational user knows what
has transpired in the episode of care. The operational user may be a doctor, a nurse, a lab technician, an
office assistant, and so forth. The operational user most likely knows the patient and the particulars about
the episode of care. The details of healthcare activity are recorded here. The operational user has the chal-
lenge of translating results to medical codes and conforming to other regulations and governing criteria.
The next user of the healthcare information factory is the farmer (
Figure B.53
). The farmer is
a business analyst (an accountant) where there is a great deal of repetition to his or her job. The
farmer is a person who looks for the same type of data repeatedly. The farmer produces typical
