Data Warehouse Features

A HIPAA-compliant data warehouse forms the backbone of the AZHQ community data system. Development, installation and setup of all necessary computer hardware was completed in 2004. Updates to the warehouse tables continue as an ongoing process when additional files are received.

By 2006 the data warehouse had expanded to two terabytes in order to accommodate over 100 million records reflecting health information for more than 5.2 million unique individuals who have been part of Arizona's health care system. Plans currently call for further capacity expansion and installation of new capabilities that allow ease of interconnectivity between the warehouse and its data partners.

Data Warehouse Structure

All essential demographic, clinical and financial elements are captured
Easily extractable at many levels of information
Efficient storage
Ease of use/understandability
Quick reporting capabilities

Robust Data Loading Process

Accepts data in a variety of formats and layouts
Flexible data handling
Standard data request form
Can accept submissions spanning multiple files and tables
Quick turn-around time to load new data

Data Quality

Quality checks - only cleaned and validated records are loaded
Standard validation reports on every data submission
All values are converted into standardized, HIPAA-compliant values

Data Security

All data behind highly secure firewall
Weekly backup to offsite tape
Quick restore for virtual day-to-day backups
Data tracking tool to log new data submissions
No personally or organizationally identifiable information to be released

Custom Developed Matching Algorithms

Fuzzy matching tools to de-duplicate patients within systems and find those assigned multiple ID numbers
Fuzzy matching tools to identify patients across systems
Matching claims across systems

Value to the Community

Wealth of information opportunities
Standardization results in data that are comparable across facilities and sources
Track patients across systems and over time
Quick response time for data analysis projects
Constantly updated information