Database Homework

I have compiled a list of some of the questions frequently asked by students as they complete Assignment #3. They are broken into two sections: Administrative and Assignment Specific.

Administrative Questions

Q: What are we expected to turn in?

A: Please submit an MS Word document to the assignments area, under Assignment #3. Any other files (such as .xml) you would like to submit should be zipped along with your MS Word document into a single zip file and then submitted in the manner described above.

Assignment Specific Questions

Q: For question #1, I could not find anything when researching "Clinical Reasoning Codes" - is it possible that these go by another name? 

A: The SNOMED is the code set for Clinical Reasoning.

Q: For question #1, where will we find information to complete this question?

A: It will be a combination of on-line and textbook searches. Chapter 10 in the 3rd edition of the text does discuss code systems including Loinc and Snowmed. Also, Chapter 8 of Administrative Healthcare Data has good information.

Q: For question #1, how many standards per category do you expect us to provide for each of the following?           a.) Diagnoses           b.) Laboratory tests           c.) Medical procedures           d.) Medications           e.) Clinical reasoning

A: At a minimum, one per category. In most cases, there is only one that is current. If you can find more than one in a category, please include.

Q: Excuse me if this is a really obvious question, but I keep turning over the phrase, from Question #1, "how the codeset is related to the data from our book 'Administrative Healthcare Data' including the FacilityHeader...and any other relevant tables." And I just can't put together what it is asking for. I understand what the code sets are and what the tables are, but not what I'm supposed to say about them here as part of Question 1. T

A: What is being asked here is to identify how the "system" defined by the various SAS tables uses the different code sets you are describing in your answer for question number one. For example, if ICD was one of the code sets you decided to discusses, how is it used in the example? What table or attribute stores that information if it is indeed being used in the example?

Q: Question #4 of the assignment says to "Create a Patient Table from the Members table". Does this mean that we are to retain ALL columns from the original Members table, or just the columns specified in the assignment document and the FHIR Resource Content? Thanks in advance for the clarification.

A: Retain only columns related to Twitter FHIR.  

Q: Can we see a working example for question #4? 

A: No, we would like you to do this one yourselves. The problem was scaled back significantly from previous versions to: a) create a table (for which you have many example programs);  b) generate XML from that new table (an example that generates XML for a table is given as a SAS Snippit related to SASHELP.CARS, it is very simple to copy and modify); and c) describe the process for making a FHIR compliant file.

Q: For question #4, did you want us to populate data into the new column fields created for the Patients table? I.e. input a name, telephone number, address, marital status, etc...?

A: We would need all the information that the system contains, which definitely be name, address, phone. However, it is somewhat artificial to create them for our case. So, just create the elements that are possible given the data on the existing members table. Something like, ID, DOB, gender, active, and managingOrganization.

Q: For question #4, does an XML file need to submitted with Assignment #3?

A: No, but you are welcome to submit your generated XML file for grading consideration.