Data export
Data export is being done on demand, which means that whenever you want to export the data, you will need to tell the program do to so, by clicking the option in the menu.
Contents
Export to ECHSA Database
Patient names
Export to ECHSA Database is an anonymous export, where names of patients and surgeons are not exported. The export file is a clear-text file, which can be inspected even with a simple text editor such as Notepad. To save bandwidth, the file is compressed with gzip. You can see the clear text after you uncompress the file.
To see the file contents, you can export the data to your hard disk, open it with an archive manager (such as WinZip), extract the XML file and examine it with an XML or simple text editor (Notepad). You can see that there are no names. You can afterwards submit your file to our database.
You can also check the data export procedure in our software source code. To do that, you need to understand Java code, or hire someone who does.
How to export
To export data to ECHSA Database, to the central database, click on the menu bar on top, labeled ECHSA Database tools, then Export to ECHSA Database. You can export data using your keyboard, by pressing CTRL+E.
To upload a file with data, go to the upload website, select the file from the disk and press Submit.
Complete export
The complete export allows you to export all of the data into a disk file.
Personal data, including patients' and staff's names are being exported when using complete export! |
The complete export writes a file in the XML (for information about XML go to [1]) format which is a modern and portable data exchange format. It is also a transparent format, which means that you can easily look inside, read it and use it.
XML file can read in programs like Notepad, or any text editor. The file is intended for integration with external computer systems, and data import from XML always require some programming. It is not intended for direct end-user usage.
If you want to import data into office programs, export the data to CSV format.
XML and XSLT transformation
XSLT Stylesheet allows to transform a XML file into other formats for, example:
- HTML (also multiple HTML files)
- Plain text
- CSV
- SQL scripts
With knowledge on how to write XSLT, you are able to write your own stylsheet and transform the data into formats compatible with various scientific software:
- GNU Octave (free software under GNU GPL)
- R project (free software under GNU GPL)
- Scilab (under Scilab license)
- Matlab
- Splus
CSV file format
see article: Export to CSV
Import to relational databases
In order to work with these files in a relational database, you need to know the unique identifiers in each table.
The patient table uses patient_id as an unique identifier. Analogously, the admission and operation tables have the *_no fields.
The numbers are statically attached to the patients, admissions and operations and will remain the same across all of the exports. However, if you perform another installation of ECHSA Database Software and transfer data there, tha patient numbers will change.
ODBC access
Although it's not tested yet, it should be possible to run a standalone Cloudscape server and connect to it via ODBC.
Warning! If you use ODBC access with possibility to write to the database, you should be careful! You can easily corrupt the database when working directly on the database.
JDBC access
Direct access to the database is possible with OpenOffice and JDBC. Read the instructions:
See also