Common Data Model Harmonization

Project Background

This project focused on building data infrastructure for conducting patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) using data derived from the delivery of healthcare in routine clinical settings, such as data from insurance billing claims, electronic health records (EHRs), and patient registries. The common data model (CDM) organizes data into a standard structure, which may differ across networks. This project aimed to advance the utility of observational data for PCOR and its interoperability across multiple networks.

This project was conducted in partnership with the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Project Dates

This project began in 2017 and ended in 2019.

Project Goal

The goal of this project was to harmonize four CDMs to enable researchers to have access to data from a larger network of patients. The four CDMs were:

• Sentinel
• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (PCORnet)
• Informatics for Integrating Biology & the Bedside (i2b2)
• Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP)

To accomplish this work, three workshops brought together collaborating federal agencies, stakeholders, and subject matter experts to discuss the proposed architecture, the completed functionality, and use cases that tested the architecture built for this project.

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