Patent ID: 8438132

Claim:
A method for providing a homogeneous data source to a user from at least two heterogeneous data sources having a set of common data items and heterogeneous data element orderly arrangements in said common data items comprising: identifying a subject, by a computing device having a computer processor and computer-readable code stored on a computer-readable medium and executable by the computer processor; identifying, by the computing device, the set of common data items; comparing, by the computing device, data items in the common data items; determining, by the computing device, which data items refer to the subject; storing, by the computing device, the data items that refer to the subject in a database; determining, by the computing device, which data items in the database have different orderly arrangements of a plurality of data elements; selecting, by the computing device, a preferred data element orderly arrangement for each of the plurality of data elements, the preferred data element orderly arrangement having a same number of data elements as each of the different orderly arrangements of the plurality of data elements; populating, by the computing device, the common data items in the database with data elements having the preferred orderly arrangement for each of the plurality of data elements, accomplished by creating a cross reference database associating the orderly arrangements of the data elements that correspond to the common data items stored in the database with the preferred data element orderly arrangement, by converting the orderly arrangements of all the plurality of data elements corresponding to the common data items stored in the database to the preferred orderly arrangement, and loading the common data items with the preferred orderly arrangement of the plurality of data elements in the appropriate common data item in the database; replacing, by the computing device, the data items in the common data items of the two heterogeneous data sources with the associated data items having the preferred orderly arrangement of the plurality of data elements in response to populating the common data items in the database; and providing the user access to the database.