Data standardization unlocks integrated Chinese-Western medicine research for psoriasis

Dermatology faces a critical paradox: while electronic medical record (EMR) data volumes grow exponentially, actionable insights remain limited due to structural and semantic heterogeneity. This challenge is amplified in integrated Chinese-Western medicine settings, where records must incorporate both modern biomedical constructs and unique TCM frameworks like syndrome differentiation and herbal prescriptions.

Psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease with substantial global burden, serves as an ideal model to address this issue. Clinical guidelines increasingly endorse integrated WM-TCM approaches, but the lack of standardized data has prevented rigorous scientific validation of TCM therapeutic wisdom.

Researchers from China-Japan Friendship Hospital developed a systematic six-stage data standardization pipeline that transforms heterogeneous clinical records into analyzable research resources. The framework includes multi-source data acquisition, robust governance, three-level standardization (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic), core data element structuring, continuous quality control, and downstream application deployment. The team identified distinct core data elements for both WM and TCM, and integrated advanced technologies including natural language processing for classical TCM terminology extraction.

This standardized approach enables the creation of integrated psoriasis specialty databases, mechanistic real-world studies, and AI-assisted clinical decision support tools. The methodology is broadly applicable across dermatology and other medical specialties, laying a critical foundation for data-driven precision integrative healthcare.

The work titled “From Heterogeneous Records to Actionable Insights: Data Standardization as the Foundation for Integrated Dermatology Research” was published in Skin on May 11, 2026.