SYNCHRONUS: a reusable software module for temporal integration.

Querying time-stamped data in clinical databases is an essential step in the actuation of many decision-support rules. Since previous methods of temporal data management are not readily transferable among legacy databases, developers must create de novo querying methods that allow temporal integration of a decision-support program and existing database. In this paper, we outline four software-engineering principles that support a general, reusable approach to temporal integration. We then describe the design and implementation of SYNCHRONUS, a software module that advances our prior work on temporal querying. We show how this module satisfies the four principles for the task of temporal integration. SYNCHRONUS can help developers to overcome the software-engineering burden of temporal model heterogeneity within decision-support architectures.