Preparing Electronic Health Records Data for Comparative Effectiveness Studies

The growing availability of electronic clinical data is enabling new opportunities for large-scale distributed data-sharing networks that support comparative effectiveness research (CER). Data stored in electronic health records (EHRs) require substantial processing to be usable in distributed research networks (DRNs). We describe the functional features of ROSITA (Reusable OMOP and SAFTINet Interface Adaptor), a virtual machine package that performs many required functions to transform EHR data for use in distributed CER networks. ROSITA is a "middleware" component of SAFTINet, a multi-institutional DRN focused on CER studies to inform the care of safety net populations.