ABSTRACT
Having prepared ourselves to jump into the analytical process of defining the dimensions of a biomedical data warehouse in the last chapter, it’s understandable that we would want to next jump into that process. If we jump directly from a discussion of dimensional modeling into the design of our data warehouse, we’ll be treating the database itself as far too central to our effort. Instead, it’s important to take a side trip into understanding our source data from which we’ll eventually build our data warehouse. We don’t want our warehouse to feel like an information technology system. Instead, we want it to have a biomedical, clinical, or healthcare feel to it. To create that feel, we need to understand our data in more and different ways than we typically do in traditional projects. We don’t want to see the data in our systems; we want to see our world in our data.
