How to integrate various data marts?

Question

I recently joined a healthcare company and they have separate datamarts for each type of each type of diseases. Lets say I have three different DM's as follows:

1. HIV
2. HepC
3. Respiratory

How would I go on to integrate these into one Data-warehouse?

From what I have read, this is a Kimball Aprroach. And I should look for similar dimensions and try to build on that.

Any other recommendations ?

Answer 1

Your question is too vague. Without knowing what you want to do with a data warehouse, and how the data marts are structured, it's hard to comment on how you should go about it. You might want to step back and think about two things, and explain: what do I want to do? and what do I have?

Talk with the stake holders to settle on what you they to have on a data warehouse. How do they want to use a data warehouse? Is it for internal analytics is for simple aggregation reports? If so, what kind of metrics need to be aggregated? If they are doing complex analytics, what kind of metrics do they need for it? I recommend identifying a list of "needs", and prioritize them, so you can think about what dimensions need to be delivered first.

After that, research what you have closely. What does each disease data mart have? Does it have information about disease? taxonomy? patients who have that disease? procedures done for that disease? Identify the structure of the data marts, and make a list of attributes that can be derived from them.

After that, you might have a more fruitful conversation on the methods of integration.