To include or not to include

Hi,

I was just after some advise/validation of how I am building a dimension for medical practitioners and their associated practice to link to a new hospital data warehouse. We are interested in modelling referrals to the accident and emergency department, so would like to follow a GP as they move from practices or an individual practice and the volume of referrals overall.

I am currently thinking that merging practice and practitioners into a single dimension would give me the best ability to track this type activity.

Or do you think it would be better to split the practice and practitioner into separate dimensions with a bridging table linking them. This does seem to possibly create additional work for no real value?

This is my first project flying solo, so any advice is greatly appreciated

Many thanks,

Jamie

Regards,

Jamie

Not sure if that helps much.  It would make sense to me to identify both the practice and practitioner as keys in whatever facts.  So it gives you that relationship at that particular moment.  For individual practices, you either have a generic 'Individual' row in the practice dimension or you create one for each individual with the back office info.

So, to expand on this, the practice dimension contains information about the corporation that runs the practice, be they an individual or a medical group. While the practitioner dimension contains information about the doctor.

Hi,

Thanks for the response.

I think I might have been over complicating things. I'll keep them separate

Best regards,

Jamie