1. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.com
Proprietary and Confidential
Six Points to Bind Data
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2. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.com
Proprietary and Confidential
1- Bind in the source system: In this scenario,
you decide that you want to capture cost-per-case in
the source system itself—to enforce that rule and bind
it to data in the source system. To bind at this level,
you would actually go into your financial system (like
PeopleSoft) and create a new field for cost-per-case.
2- Bind during ETL to the source mart: You
may decide that you don’t want to create a new field in
the source system. Rather, you choose to bind the
data while extracting and moving it from the financial
system into its source mart. You take the case type,
the cost, the number of cases, and all of the inputs
needed to calculate cost-per-case. From those inputs,
you calculate cost-per-case during the ETL process,
and then you store that new cost-per-case element in
the financial system’s source mart. Importantly, when
binding at this point, you do not store the inputs in the
source mart, just the resulting calculation.
3- Bind in the source mart: Binding at this point
is similar to number 2 above. The difference is that
you store the calculation and the inputs in the source
mart. You preserve the discrete inputs in the source
mart and do not have to go back into the source
system to find them.
4- Bind during ETL to the customized data
mart (SAM): Choosing to bind at this point means not
storing the calculated cost-per-case in the source mart.
Rather, you store the inputs in the source mart and then
perform the calculation as the data is extracted and
moved into a SAM. At this point, you would store the
calculated cost-per-case—not the inputs—in the SAM.
5- Bind in the SAM: With this approach, you store all
the inputs and the calculated cost-per-case in the SAM.
As I mentioned previously, with the cost-per-case example
you wouldn’t want to bind so late in the process. You
would open yourself up to the risk of ending up with
different calculations from different analysts.
6- Bind in the visualization layer: In this scenario,
you only bind in the report itself. You bring in all of the
inputs as you build the cost-per-case report, and you
calculate cost-per-case on the fly. In the real world, you
wouldn’t bind this late for cost-per-case. Binding in the
visualization layer is appropriate for “what if” scenario
analysis associated with modeling different
reimbursement models or defining disease states. Once
that exploratory “what if” phase is complete, the new
models and definitions can bound at an earlier point.
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Six Points to Bind Data

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Proprietary and Confidential
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