Creating The Canadian Emergency Department Research Network (CEDRN): a new era for emergency medicine research

Emergency physicians care for diverse patients with undifferentiated and evolving conditions and often make clinical decisions with limited scientific evidence. Administrative barriers to effective pan-Canadian data collection from Emergency Departments (EDs) limit our ability to generate evidence in a timely manner, particularly in times of crisis. Informed by our prior COVID-19 collaboration ( https://ccedrrn.ca ), we created the Canadian ED Research Network (CEDRN, https://cedrn.ca ) to address these barriers. Our objective is to describe the Canadian ED Research Network's approach to enabling pan-Canadian, harmonized clinical ED data collection using established infrastructure and processes to accelerate research, quality improvement, and surveillance.

The Canadian ED Research Network has executed data sharing and membership agreements, privacy approvals, and multi-stakeholder governance that can support the timely launch of national multi-center observational data collection for patients presenting to participating EDs, including rural and remote sites. The Canadian ED Research Network's standardized privacy-approved data collection platform, data flow, and data management processes facilitate the creation of nationally harmonized datasets including data cleaning and verification, permit linkages with administrative datasets, and secure access to data for research ethics board approved analyses within Canada. Outcomes and analytic methods for studies are determined by study-specific steering committees. By allowing the use of data for quality improvement and surveillance, Canadian ED Research Network data can be transferred to provincial health improvement networks to create metrics to monitor public health threats and track implementation of evidence-based interventions.

The Canadian ED Research Network is a pan-Canadian research network that has the potential to facilitate and accelerate emergency medicine research and improve care. Its broad geographic and clinical scope will allow Canadian ED Research Network studies to expand to any research relevant to emergency medicine and enhance Canada's health emergencies and pandemic research preparedness. Use of data for research, quality improvement, and surveillance may facilitate implementation of learning health systems at participating sites.