Density of routinely collected neurology data depends on patient visit type: an investigation using the observational...

The Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model (CDM) is a standardised framework for organising healthcare data. This study uses data in the OMOP CDM format to analyse information on neurology patients.

Routinely collected data harmonised to OMOP at a large referral hospital in England were used. A study cohort was defined as patients who attended at least one neurology outpatient appointment between 01 April 2022 and 31 March 2023 (n=23 862). Data collected at all visits to the hospital made by this cohort between 01 April 2021 and 31 March 2024 were extracted. The cohort was then divided into four subcohorts according to appointment types attended: outpatient appointment(s) only (n=15 2); outpatient appointment(s) and inpatient stay(s) (n=2750); outpatient appointment(s) and emergency department attendance(s) (n=1658); outpatient appointment(s), inpatient stay(s) and emergency department attendance(s) (n=4199).

We found there to be more data available for patients who had at least one inpatient stay or emergency department attendance than for those with only outpatient appointments. Notably, an average of 0 out of 100 patients in the outpatient only subcohort had a record of a condition, compared with 100 out of 100 patients in the subcohort with outpatient appointments, emergency attendances and inpatient stays.

Neurology outpatients have far less data recorded than inpatients or patients attending emergency departments. This disparity arises from the lack of outpatient diagnostic coding and impairs the advancement of research in this area. Using the OMOP CDM structure makes it easy to highlight these differences.