Normalization and standardization of electronic health records for high-throughput phenotyping: The sharpn consortium

Jyotishman Pathak, Kent R. Bailey, Calvin E. Beebe, Steven Bethard, David S. Carrell, Pei J. Chen, Dmitriy Dligach, Cory M. Endle, Lacey A. Hart, Peter J. Haug, Stanley M. Huff, Vinod C. Kaggal, Dingcheng Li, Hongfang Liu, Kyle Marchant, James Masanz, Timothy Miller, Thomas A. Oniki, Martha Palmer, Kevin J. PetersonSusan Rea, Guergana K. Savova, Craig R. Stancl, Sunghwan Sohn, Harold R. Solbrig, Dale B. Suesse, Cui Tao, David P. Taylor, Les Westberg, Stephen Wu, Ning Zhuo, Christopher G. Chute

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

Research objective To develop scalable informatics infrastructure for normalization of both structured and unstructured electronic health record (EHR) data into a unified, concept-based model for high-throughput phenotype extraction. Materials and methods Software tools and applications were developed to extract information from EHRs. Representative and convenience samples of both structured and unstructured data from two EHR systems -Mayo Clinic and Intermountain Healthcare-were used for development and validation. Extracted information was standardized and normalized to meaningful use (MU) conformant terminology and value set standards using Clinical Element Models (CEMs). These resources were used to demonstrate semi-automatic execution of MU clinical-quality measures modeled using the Quality Data Model (QDM) and an open-source rules engine. Results Using CEMs and open-source natural language processing and terminology services engines-namely, Apache clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System (cTAKES) and Common Terminology Services (CTS2)-we developed a data-normalization platform that ensures data security, end-to-end connectivity, and reliable data flow within and across institutions. We demonstrated the applicability of this platform by executing a QDM-based MU quality measure that determines the percentage of patients between 18 and 75 years with diabetes whose most recent low-density lipoprotein cholesterol test result during the measurement year was <100 mg/dL on a randomly selected cohort of 273 Mayo Clinic patients. The platform identified 21 and patients for the denominator and numerator of the quality measure, respectively. Validation results indicate that all identified patients meet the QDM-based criteria. Conclusions End-to-end automated systems for extracting clinical information from diverse EHR systems require extensive use of standardized vocabularies and terminologies, as well as robust information models for storing, discovering, and processing that information. This study demonstrates the application of modular and opensource resources for enabling secondary use of EHR data through normalization into standards-based, comparable, and consistent format for high-throughput phenotyping to identify patient cohorts.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)e341-e348
JournalJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association
Volume20
Issue numberE2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Informatics

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