Cited by 1,107Electronic Health Records SystemsMedical Coding and Health InformationMachine Learning in Healthcare

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 6 of the 6 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 7 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI): Opportunities for Observational Researchers

Open access
Hripcsak George, Duke Jon D., Shah Nigam H., Reich Christian G., Huser Vojtech, Schuemie Martijn J., Suchard Marc A., Park Rae Woong, Wong Ian Chi Kei, Rijnbeek Peter R., van der Lei Johan, Pratt Nicole, Norén G. Niklas, Li Yu-Chuan, Stang Paul E., Madigan David, Ryan Patrick B.·2015·Studies in Health Technology and Informatics

Abstract

The vision of creating accessible, reliable clinical evidence by accessing the clincial experience of hundreds of millions of patients across the globe is a reality. Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) has built on learnings from the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership to turn methods research and insights into a suite of applications and exploration tools that move the field closer to the ultimate goal of generating evidence about all aspects of healthcare to serve the needs of patients, clinicians and all other decision-makers around the world.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

OHDSI is an international open collaborative that builds on OMOP to create an open-source, federated network using the OMOP Common Data Model for large-scale observational health research. It reports that 58 existing OMOP databases had converted 682 million patient records and estimates over 200 million patients available in the OHDSI Research Forum.

Key findings

  • OHDSI grew out of the five-year Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) and adopted/maintains the OMOP Common Data Model (CDM), requiring data holders to map their data to the CDM so that a query can be executed at any site without modification.
  • A survey of current OMOP data model users found that 58 existing OMOP databases had collectively converted 682 million patient records to the OMOP CDM; this includes duplicated patients and sources and databases not currently participating in the OHDSI Research Forum. The paper estimates that the actual number of patients currently available in the OHDSI Research Forum is over 200 million.
  • OHDSI’s first annual meeting at Columbia University Medical Center on 16–17 October 2014 had 58 participants; over 90 participants from around the world have joined the collaborative, with a vision to access a network of one billion patients.
  • OHDSI tools include ACHILLES for data characterization and quality visualization, HERMES for vocabulary browsing, PLATO for patient-level prediction, HERACLES for cohort exploration, and HOMER for risk identification and comparative effectiveness studies. The first published OHDSI study used databases maintained by one site to carry out a medication-wide association study.

Methods

  • Descriptive program/vision paper, not an empirical study; it narrates OHDSI’s infrastructure, governance, software tools, and research network.
  • Data/sample: a survey of current OMOP data model users, reporting 58 databases and 682 million converted patient records; the first annual meeting had 58 participants.
  • Main analysis: narrative synthesis of a federated model in which data are retained locally, analyses are run locally, and de-identified aggregate results are transmitted centrally; standard terminologies include SNOMED for diagnoses, RxNorm for drug ingredients, and LOINC for laboratory results. Results may be reported without aggregation, summarized, or aggregated if sufficient homogeneity can be demonstrated.

Limitations

  • The paper does not present a formal limitations section. It acknowledges that the 682 million records include duplicated patients and sources and databases not currently participating in the OHDSI Research Forum, so the count is not a unique-patient count.
  • It notes that OMOP previously demonstrated databases from different sources can give vastly different answers, and that blind aggregation may increase variance due to heterogeneity instead of decreasing it due to sample size.
  • Evident from the text: no formal evaluation or outcome data for OHDSI tools or network performance are reported; the paper is descriptive and vision-oriented.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3233/978-1-61499-564-7-574

Cites

6 of 6 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

10 Own interpretation · 7 Sources not found · 6 No basis given · 1 Own result

Show all 8 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 8
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 10
16 of 16
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The OMOP CDM is a 'strong' information model, in which the encoding and relationships among concepts are explicitly and formally specified.

    “This CDM is a”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The 682 million patient records converted to the OMOP CDM represent a significant fraction of the world's population.

    “a number of records that would represent a significant fraction of the world's population”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The existing OMOP databases and conversion experience are sufficient to make the OHDSI vision of accessing a network of one billion patients feasible today.

    “In other words, OHDSI vision is, in fact, feasible today.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Mappings and tools supplied by OHDSI are sufficient to translate from all other terminologies so that choice of standard terminologies does not limit participation.

    “mappings and tools are supplied to translate from other terminologies”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Any given query can be executed at any site without modification.

    “because any given query can be executed at any site without modification”
5 of 5

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 6 references

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 801–900 of 1,105

Metadata

Authors
George, H., Duke Jon, D., Shah Nigam, H., Reich Christian, G., Vojtech, H., Schuemie Martijn, J., Suchard Marc, A., Woong, P. R., Kei, W. I. C., Rijnbeek Peter, R., Johan, V. D. L., Nicole, P., Niklas, N. G., Yu-Chuan, L., Stang Paul, E., David, M., & Ryan Patrick, B.
Affiliations
  • Ajou University (KR)
  • Erasmus MC (NL)
Venue
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
Publisher
IOS Press
Published
2015
Volume
216
Pages
574-8
ISSN
0926-9630 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1126991912
Cited by
1,107
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 40 · 2025: 111 · 2024: 138 · 2023: 136 · 2022: 179 · 2021: 149 · 2020: 123 · 2019: 85 · 2018: 70 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 7
FWCI
143.57
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
Licence
public-domain
Locations
  • Studies in health technology and informatics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • AJOU Open Repository (Ajou University) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (submittedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (submittedVersion)
  • Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
  • UniSA Research Outputs Repository (University of South Australia) (submittedVersion)
  • PubMed
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (1251151)
  • U.S. National Library of Medicine (R01LM006910)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Medical Coding and Health Information
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning in Healthcare
Keywords
OHDSI, OMOP, observational studies, real-world data, research infrastructure
MeSH terms
Health Services Research, Medical Informatics, Databases, Factual, Models, Organizational, Internationality, Observational Studies as Topic

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