Data storage paves way for
mining
Ubiquitous access to multimedia records pushes
petabyte trend
By Kathy
Kincade
Technology advances such as electronic medical records, ubiquitous data
distribution, and multidimensional images are already having a dramatic effect
on data storage needs. Not only must increasing amounts of data from disparate
legacy systems be combined and stored securely and efficiently, but much of this
data must then be accessible on demand from multiple locations and computer
platforms.
“The amount of imaging data in healthcare today is 10 to 25 times more
than what is currently on the ground for health information systems,” said
Peter Stone, applied technologist for the healthcare vertical data storage giant
EMC.
Not only are healthcare facilitators seeking to optimize electronic data
storage and access to that storage, but many people are studying how the data
can be massaged to improve clinical practices and patient outcomes. While this
is still a cumbersome process, often involving mining information from four or
five different systems at the same time, a wealth of information can be
extracted from these databases, all related to clinical information, research,
education, and management.
“As we collect more data including images, lots of opportunities arise
to go up the hierarchy from data to useful information, to knowledge, to
wisdom,” said Dr. David Piraino, head of the computers in radiology section
at the Cleveland Clinic. “Now I have enough data that I can look into and
extract the important things about diseases, workflow, performance, and cost,
that allow us to do a much better job of treating patients.”
One of the most ambitious clinical data mining projects is creation of a
reference tool for diagnosis and disease management that allows radiologists to
search for images representing disease, conduct searches by disease, and review
representative images. Information specialists at Partners Healthcare are
developing an Internet search engine able to sift through the 50 million images
archived there.
The real goal, however, is to be able to mine reports and their
interpretations, not just the images. Some informaticists foresee online content
providers supporting just-in-time tools to enhance image interpretation. A
physician viewing a confusing case on a PC, for example, would be able to access
reference information about a specific disease, perform a literature search, and
consult a digital image database to help find answers.
“We are already migrating toward a multipurpose data archive/repository
that is cheaper, easier to use, and requires only one IT team to manage
it,” said Dr. Paul Chang, director of the division of radiology informatics
at the University of Pittsburgh. “Then we apply middleware technology, such
as Java, Active X, and CORBA, to massage it and customize it for each user. That
is the future.”
