Building an i2b2-Based Population Repository for COVID-19 Research

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Epidemiology
• Medical Data Management

Background:

• Effective reuse of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for diseases like COVID-19 necessitates adherence to international data standards.
• The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for agile and standardized data management in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the process of evolving Electronic Health Records (EHRs) at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre (H12O) for COVID-19 data.
• To enable the sharing of standardized COVID-19 patient data with international research consortia.

Main Methods:

• Identification, modeling, and standardization of COVID-19 related concepts within the EHR system.
• Agile, flexible, and staged evolution of EHRs to accommodate new disease data.
• Extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) of data into an i2b2 repository.
• Data sharing via platforms like TriNetX and the 4CE Consortium.

Main Results:

• Standardized data from over 200,000 COVID-19 cases were successfully processed.
• H12O's EHRs were adapted to meet international standards for disease-specific data reuse.
• Facilitated data contribution to global COVID-19 research efforts.

Conclusions:

• Agile and standardized EHR evolution is crucial for managing and sharing critical health data during pandemics.
• The i2b2 repository and international collaborations enabled significant data sharing for COVID-19 research.
• H12O's approach provides a model for other institutions handling large-scale disease data.