Extending the Entity-Attribute-Value Model

In a previous chapter, I introduced the use of the Entity-Attribute-Value model for representing highly variable clinical data. EAV is appropriate for clinical data because the universe of clinical attributes that can apply to a patient are both numerous and sparse. I emphasized that the use of the EAV model is unworkable in the absence of a supporting metadata infrastructure that supports validation and presentation and, of course, code that operates on this metadata.