An OLAP-enabled software environment for modelling patient flow

Abstract

On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools use multidimensional views to provide quick access to information. They have become the de facto standard in the business world for analytical databases. In health care, care givers and managers could benefit from being able to perform interactive data exploration, ad-hoc analysis and possibly discover hidden trends and patterns in health data. However, health data have unique characteristics that distinguish them from common business examples, an aspect that makes the direct adaptation of the already established business oriented solutions difficult. In this paper we report the development of an OLAP system for analyzing hospital discharge data and for modeling hospital length of stay.