Data normalization is an essential activity whenever two or more previously independent facilities are migrated into single, consolidated data repository, as it preserves the integrity of incoming data by avoiding broken links between patient records and problematic collisions between device and study identifiers.
Jude Mosley, Manager of Information Technology, Imaging at Sentara Healthcare knows this better than anyone. She and her team face this very challenge regularly whenever a new hospital or imaging center is integrated into the 5-hospital network in Norfolk, Virginia.
Hey, that’s my jacket!
The first challenge is ensuring patient jackets from differing systems are reconciled correctly so that no information was lost or attached erroneously to the wrong patient. Using a master patient index (MPI), Sentara is able to match patients between the source and destination systems and update all incoming studies with the correct patient identifier upon ingestion. This results in a single, consistent set of MRNs across the Sentara network, and eliminates future risk that an old MRN could be mistakenly used.
The next challenge is ensuring study accession numbers remain unique, and that the migration process doesn’t introduce duplicate accession numbers for different patients. To accomplish this, Sentara employed normalization policies that pre-fixed the accession number and updated the location attribute to a 3-character code representing the source facility for all incoming studies. Not only did this avoid potential collisions between accession numbers, it also added a level of transparency to the migrated data that allowed Sentara to quickly and easily identify its original source.
The Big Bang theory of modalities
While the migration process provides an excellent opportunity to normalize data on-the-fly, it is often necessary to enforce data normalization policies at the modalities themselves. At Sentara, normalization at the modality level is a well-defined process. With each new modality introduction, update, or site acquisition Sentara ensures that every affected modality adheres to a consistent set of pre-defined policies regarding AE title and station naming conventions. When new modalities are installed, or vendor updates are applied, Sentara requires the vendors to be aware of and sign off on the required data policies to ensure they’re properly applied and thoroughly tested after the installation is complete to maintain adherence.
For larger-scale activities, like a new site acquisition and migration, the PACS team prepares a comprehensive list of all modalities and their new AE titles, station names, and IP addresses, and orchestrates a big-bang update process. While this is no small undertaking, through experience Sentara has refined this process to run like a well-oiled machine. Once complete, Sentara has improved the consistency and supportability of their now-larger infrastructure, and once again ensured that data arrives in a predictable and consistent manner.
A shining example of normalcy
This case provides excellent examples of how data normalization can address the integration challenges faced by expanding health systems. Not only does it mitigate risk by avoiding data loss and collisions during the migration process, it also measurably improves data quality and reduces support costs in the future by improving the consistency and predictability of systems and data across the entire network.
Our next blog will be taking a more clinical focus, looking at how data normalization can be leveraged to uncover deep insights across population-wide data sources. Sound interesting? Subscribe to our blog to be notified when the next post becomes available!