UNC develops clinical research data warehouse

The University of North Carolina Health Care will expand its use of IBM's InfoSphere data warehousing, integration and management software; WebSphere integration and application infrastructure software; and Health Integration Framework architecture technologies to build a data warehouse for treatment research and personalized treatment.

The Carolina Data Warehouse for Health will include data from UNC Health Care's electronic medical records, insurance records, nursing notes and other clinical information sources, according to sister publication FierceHealth IT. Researchers are increasingly accessing patient records, now that so many are available in electronic form, to provide context missing from more traditional clinical data sources, as we've reported.

Researchers plan to use the database for their studies of diseases, as well as for use in providing personalized care based on genetic factors, demographics and individual risk factors. They are also hoping the database can streamline the information gathering required for regulatory approvals.

- check out the FierceHealth IT item
- read about Cerner Corp.'s marketing of patient records