Data exploration and knowledge discovery in a patient wellness tracking (PWT) system at a nurse-managed health services center

Abstract

This paper describes our ongoing research on data exploration and knowledge discovery in a patient wellness tracking (PWT) information system developed for a nurse-managed community health center. The center employs an innovative and transdisciplinary care model that fully integrates behavioral and various wellness services into primary care to form a team approach. We have developed the PWT system that integrates clinical data collected in an electronic medical record (EMR) system with the data generated by a spectrum of healthy living programs and wellness services. While data is being collected rapidly in large volumes, it is imperative to develop effective tools in helping clinicians explore data and discover knowledge. In this paper, we present (1) an exploratory data browser based on information content in information theory for searching granularity patient data, and (2) a knowledge discovery component based on probabilistic graphical models for diagnosis, prognosis, and revealing clinical cause-effect interactions.