Patent ID: 7165077

Claim:
A method for electronically processing and organizing pharmacy data for analysis, comprising the steps of: a) defining a first set of standards for determining the validity of a batch file containing at least one pharmacy record; b) defining a second set of standards for determining the relational integrity of each of the at least one pharmacy record in the batch file; c) defining a third set of standards for determining the presence of any data errors in each of the at least one pharmacy record; d) assembling at least one electronic batch file by a data source, the at least one electronic batch file comprising a header, at least one pharmacy record and a trailer; e) communicating the at least one electronic batch file from the data source to a data processor; f) checking by the data processor each of the at least one electronic batch file for validity in accordance with the first set of standards and either: i) rejecting a respective electronic batch file if it does not meet the first set of standards, and communicating a rejection report to the data source, or ii) accepting the respective electronic batch file if it meets the first set of standards, and storing at least one record from the electronic batch file in a temporary table of a holding database; g) reading a selected record from the temporary table; h) checking the selected record for relational integrity in accordance with the second set of standards, and if any relational integrity errors are found: i) quarantining the selected record, and ii) generating an entry in an exception table for the selected record; i) checking the selected record for data errors in accordance with the third set of defined standards, and if any data errors are found: i) quarantining the selected record, and ii) generating an entry in the exception table for the selected record; j) transferring the selected record to a permanent table of the holding database if no relational integrity or data errors are found; k) repeating steps (g) through (j) until all records in the temporary table have been read; and l) electronically transferring the records from the permanent table of the holding database to a data warehouse for selective access and analysis.