Employing heat maps to mine associations in structured routine care data

We could demonstrate that heat maps of measures of association are effective for the visualization of patterns in routine care EMRs. The adjustable method for the assignment of attributes to image dimensions permits a balance between the display of ample information and a favorable level of graphical complexity. The scope of the search can be adapted by the use of pre-existing assumptions about plausible effects to select exposure and outcome attributes. Thus, the proposed method promises to simplify the detection of undiscovered causal effects within routine EMR data.