Implementation and evaluation of a multivariate abstraction-based, interval-based dynamic time-warping method as a similarity measure for longitudinal medical records.
Journal:
Journal of biomedical informatics
Published Date:
Oct 8, 2021
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: A common prerequisite for tasks such as classification, prediction, clustering and retrieval of longitudinal medical records is a clinically meaningful similarity measure that considers both [multiple] variable (concept) values and their time. Currently, most similarity measures focus on raw, time-stamped data as these are stored in a medical record. However, clinicians think in terms of clinically meaningful temporal abstractions, such as "decreasing renal functions", enabling them to ignore minor time and value variations and focus on similarities among the clinical trajectories of different patients. Our objective was to define an abstraction- and interval-based methodology for matching longitudinal, multivariate medical records, and rigorously assess its value, versus the option of using just the raw, time-stamped data.