A prospective study on the integration of microarray data in HIS/EPR

Abstract

The successful completion of the Human Genome Project promised an increase on our knowledge about the way our organism works and therefore would have a major impact in medicine. DNA microarray is one of the techniques that appeared in this "-omic" era and that will certainly change the way diagnosis and disease treatment are made. However, despite the successive scientific breakthroughs the integration of microarrays in clinical practice will face yet the lack of proper information systems and communication standards inside the Health Information Systems (HIS) scenarios. We hereby review current information systems for microarrays' laboratories and for healthcare institutions and also the latest integration efforts, assessing the shortcomings and structural difficulties derived from integrating two distinct fields. We also present the expected difficulties that may arise from the developments in the genetic diagnosis field and its interactions with other diagnostic areas such as imaging and/or radiology. From this prospective analysis we propose a model where the laboratorial microarray data can be integrated with other diagnostic systems in clinical environments, performing structured diagnostic workflows and integrating information from multiple diagnostic sources onto the HIS. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.