LESSON 13:
CLINICAL DATA
REPOSITORIES
AT THE END OF THE LESSON, THE
STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

 IDENTIFY THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CLINICAL DATA

REPOSITORIES;

 EXPLAIN THE ADVANTAGES OF HAVING MULTIPLE VIEWS

FOR PATIENT MEDICAL RECORD; AND

 DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF CLINICAL DATA

VISUALIZATION
Clinical Data Repositories (CDR)
represent an aggregated database of
clinical information.
 The CDR
integrates
physician-
entered
data with
data from
different
existing
information
systems;
ELEMENTS OF THE CDR
 Maintaining a CDR poses a lot of
advantages.

 The longitudinal view of a patient’s

medical record can assist in improving
patient experience and having information
about prior test results and procedures
helps avoid redundant treatment.
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A structured and systematically gathered
storehouse of patient-specific data;

 The main application avoids computational

loading, and response time to a query is
improved.
 Clinicaldata repositories have different levels
of integration;

 The level of integration of a CDR influences

its functionality by setting constraints on how
easily someone can make queries for any of its
contents.
CDRs also vary in how they
restrict the users or the purpose
for its use.
Access control to the CDR
functions as a safeguard to uphold
data security and integrity.
 The longitudinal nature of the CDR requires a
way of linking various observations of the
same identified subject.
 Most repositories usually contain personally-
identified data - the lack of identifiers could
also prevent the linking of data for some
patients.
(Table 1) Different types of clinical data repositories
MULTIPLE VIEWS FOR PATIENT
MEDICAL RECORD
 Thestructure of CDR allows data to be extracted
along dimensions such as time, location, or
diagnosis among many others.

 CDRs help organizations transform large

amounts of information from distinct
transactional files into a unitary decision-support
database (Wager, Lee, and Glaser, 2013).
 A well-deployed clinical repository has multiple
advantages.
 CDR - provide longitudinal views of patient
information.
 CDRs are often organized primarily around
patients and secondly around visits or
encounters, a method that easily accommodates
views that span multiple visits.
CDRs provide access to information
where it is needed.

Well-deployed CDRs can create a one-

stop shopping environment.
Finally, CDRs offer a cross-
continuum view of information, since
they allow information to be gathered
and viewed from sources other than
an acute setting.
GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION
 Datacollected through an electronic health
record system may be retrieved at the
request of an authorized user.
(Bronzino and Peterson, 2014)
GRAPHICAL PRESENTATION
 Analyzing trends and patterns from large data
sets can be a challenging process.
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KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER:
 The CDR integrates physician-entered data with data from different existing
information systems including laboratory, radiology, admission, and
pharmacy, among others.
 A clinical data repository as a structured and systematically gathered
storehouse of patient-specific data, which is usually mirrored from a clinical
application, or supplemented with data from other clinical systems.
 Repository types includes Study, Electronic Health Record, Registry,
Warehouse, Collection and Federation.
 CDRs offer a cross-continuum view of information, since they allow
information to be gathered and viewed from sources other than an acute
setting.
 Data visualization helps in simplifying a wide array of information, and it
allows decision-makers to derive analytical results from information
presented visually.