Use of EHRs data for clinical research: Historical progress and current applications

Abstract

The benefits of reusing EHR data for clinical research studies are numerous. They portend the opportunity to bring new therapies to patients sooner, potentially at a lower cost, and to accelerate learning health cycles—through faster data acquisition in clinical research studies. Metrics have proven that time can be saved, workflow and processes streamlined, and data quality increased significantly. Pilot projects and now actual investigational trials used for regulatory submissions have shown that these benefits support the transformation of clinical research by leveraging EHRs for research. Panelists at a recent collaborative focused on bridging clinical research and clinical care offered varying perspectives on how the latest standards and technologies could be leveraged to facilitate data transfer from EHR systems into clinical research databases, as well as the associated improvements in data quality. Panelists also discussed other avenues to leverage EHR in clinical research. Improvements and exciting possibilities notwithstanding, much work remains. Data ownership and access, attention to metadata and structured data for data sharing, and broader adoption of global standards are key areas for collaboration. With the steady increase in adoption of EHRs around the world, this is an excellent time for all stakeholders to work together and create an environment such that EHRs can be used more readily for research. The capacity for research can thus be increased to provide more high‐quality information that will contribute to rapid continuous learning health systems from which all patients can benefit.

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) as a Meta Model to Integrate Common Data Models: Development of a Tool and Quantitative Validation Study

“…The challenge of cross-institutional EHR data sharing is by no means limited to the Translator program [10]. Institutions wishing to engage in data sharing may not support the same CDM—perhaps one uses i2b2, whereas another uses OMOP.…”

Propuesta metodológica de intercambio electrónico de información clínica basada en estándares de telemedicina/Methodological proposal of electronic data interchange and clinical information based on telemedicine standards

“…Los estándares además facilitan el acceso y almacenamiento de la información clínica. Por lo cual, al tener un acceso estandarizado a las historias clínicas de forma electrónica posterior a las consultas médicas, brinda una fuente importante de información que posibilita a futuras investigaciones la oportunidad de crear nuevas terapias basada en la información clínica histórica, acelerar el aprendizaje de ciclos de salud, entre otros (10) En la Tabla 1 se comparan los estándares HL7, CEN TC 251 13606, OpenEHR y DICOM en base a factores que determinan la forma de intercambio de información clínica.…”

API Driven On-Demand Participant ID Pseudonymization in Heterogeneous Multi-Study Research

“…Electronic Health Record (EHR) use has become ubiquitous in clinical care, revolutionizing patient data collection and storage [ 1 ]. The data from EHRs and other related systems can be leveraged to facilitate translational research [ 2 , 3 ].…”