Enhancing real world data interoperability in healthcare: A methodological approach to laboratory unit harmonization

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Informatics
• Health Data Standardization
• Clinical Laboratory Science

Background:

• Non-standardized units in clinical laboratory data hinder data interoperability and secondary use.
• The Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM) provides a standard for units, but adoption is low, with ~60% of codes non-compliant.
• Challenges in data comparability arise from inconsistent unit representations across healthcare organizations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, implement, and test a methodology for harmonizing laboratory units to UCUM standards.
• To address the critical issue of non-standardized units in clinical laboratory data.
• To enhance data interoperability and usability for secondary data analysis within a large research network.

Main Methods:

• Utilized dimensional analysis and a curated equivalence table for unit harmonization.
• Focused on identifying and converting non-UCUM conforming units.
• Applied the methodology across the TriNetX research network.

Main Results:

• Achieved over 90% coverage of laboratory data units in UCUM standards within the TriNetX network.
• Demonstrated a significant improvement in data interoperability compared to baseline measurements.
• Facilitated more reliable and comparable data analysis across diverse healthcare organizations.

Conclusions:

• The developed methodology successfully harmonized laboratory data units to UCUM standards, a key advancement in biomedical informatics.
• This approach provides a practical solution to the challenge of non-standardized units, improving data usability for research.
• Future work will address remaining standardization gaps and explore the impact on clinical outcomes and research capabilities.