Developing a linked electronic health record derived data platform to support research into healthy ageing

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Epidemiology
• Gerontology

Background:

• Digitalization of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data presents research opportunities, but operational data requires curation for research standards.
• Harnessing large-scale routine EHR data supports efficient, long-term epidemiological and health services research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a linked EHR-derived data platform at the National Centre for Healthy Ageing.
• To enable research targeting national health priority areas in ageing.

Main Methods:

• Data validation, curation, and warehousing for quality assurance.
• End-user engagement and AI pipeline implementation for text-based data extraction.
• Incorporation of patient-reported outcome measures and consumer involvement.

Main Results:

• A research data warehouse with over 800,000 patients' data spanning 10 years.
• 117 research-suitable items identified from 11 EHR datasets.
• Implemented natural language processing (NLP) pipeline and patient-reported outcome measures framework.

Conclusions:

• Comprehensive processes are crucial for foundational data platforms using routine data.
• Robust data platforms facilitate future data linkages for cost-effective ageing research.