Evaluating common data models for use with a longitudinal community registry

J Biomed Inform. 2016 Dec:64:333-341. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2016.10.016. Epub 2016 Oct 29.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate common data models (CDMs) to determine which is best suited for sharing data from a large, longitudinal, electronic health record (EHR)-based community registry.

Materials and methods: Four CDMs were chosen from models in use for clinical research data: Sentinel v5.0 (referred to as the Mini-Sentinel CDM in previous versions), PCORnet v3.0 (an extension of the Mini-Sentinel CDM), OMOP v5.0, and CDISC SDTM v1.4. Each model was evaluated against 11 criteria adapted from previous research. The criteria fell into six categories: content coverage, integrity, flexibility, ease of querying, standards compatibility, and ease and extent of implementation.

Results: The OMOP CDM accommodated the highest percentage of our data elements (76%), fared well on other requirements, and had broader terminology coverage than the other models. Sentinel and PCORnet fell short in content coverage with 37% and 48% matches respectively. Although SDTM accommodated a significant percentage of data elements (55% true matches), 45% of the data elements mapped to SDTM's extension mechanism, known as Supplemental Qualifiers, increasing the number of joins required to query the data.

Conclusion: The OMOP CDM best met the criteria for supporting data sharing from longitudinal EHR-based studies. Conclusions may differ for other uses and associated data element sets, but the methodology reported here is easily adaptable to common data model evaluation for other uses.

Keywords: Common data model; Data model evaluation; Electronic health records.

MeSH terms

  • Biomedical Research
  • Electronic Health Records*
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination*
  • Registries*