Assessing the feasibility of observational data sources for multicenter clinical studies

The availability of large Electronic Health Records (EHR) databases has created new opportunities for clinical research. To improve interoperability of these databases a Common Data Model (CDM) can be used which enables standardized analytics. However, identifying the appropriate data sources for a specific study remains a challenge. The current strategy used for database discovery are based on catalogues that contain metadata which is often not rich enough for the task at hand. Additionally, sometimes this information is incorrect since it is inserted in such platforms manually by the data owners. In response to this challenge, we proposed the Concept Browser tool. The tool aims to streamline the process of efficiently exploring and selecting suitable OMOP CDM databases aligned with the study purpose. It was developed and validated in the EHDEN project, which currently contains information from more than 180 health databases across Europe and is now being used also in the DARWIN EU
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initiative of the European Medicines Agency.