Data Science: Data Management and Warehousing for a Veterinary School
A large university’s school of veterinary medicine (SVM) prides itself on its teaching and research capabilities, offering extensive learning resources to its students, faculty, and staff. One key resource is a pet hospital database, which houses information on the diagnosis and treatment of animals from 500 hospitals in 44 states. The information is used to promote evidence-based veterinary healthcare; evaluate health outcomes; characterize the frequency and distribution of disease; and provide early warning of emerging infectious diseases. But analysts were not able to access this valuable data fast enough. With custom development in SAS and ESRI, the database required programming expertise and extensive time to write and run programs. The SVM needed to:
• Increase speed of reporting and analysis
• Eliminate complex programming to access data
• Make the database user-friendly
• Expand graphical and geostatistical data presentation to enhance analysis capabilities
• Share research among veterinary schools and clinics and develop collaboration among industry experts for experiments, research, and disease control
