Progress of Federated European Data Network, Free Online Training Program, Among Highlights Of Recent EHDEN Update

The European Health Data & Evidence Network (EHDEN) consortium continues to open new possibilities for observational health research by establishing a community of data partners and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that collaborate to build a federated data network of European databases to the OMOP common data model.

Peter Rijnbeek and Nigel Hughes, two leaders within the EHDEN community, joined the Feb. 16 OHDSI community call to provide an overview of EHDEN, as well as share several recent updates and discuss 2021 objectives for the consortium. The EHDEN and OHDSI communities have worked closely on many projects, including a free, virtual training program called the EHDEN Academy, developed within the OHDSI/EHDEN communities to assist those who hope to engage in this important work.

Slides from the presentation are available here, and the video of the full presentation is posted to the right.

Watch the EHDEN Presentation Here

Peter Rijnbeek and Nigel Hughes provided this update on EHDEN during the Feb. 16 OHDSI Community Call.

Since the project began November 1, 2018, EHDEN has brought together a total of 60 data partners, spread out over 16 European nations. Twelve of these partners are located in the United Kingdom, while Spain (11), France (7) and Italy (6) are other nations currently with the most EHDEN data partners. EHDEN leadership is planning two more open calls for data partners in 2021, with the first taking place April 15-May 13; the second is expected to take place in the fall. Check the EHDEN website and social channels for more information.

While this project began prior to the pandemic, the EHDEN consortium did create a COVID-19 task force and is working regularly with 25 partners that are actively collecting COVID data.

The exciting growth of partners collaborating within EHDEN drove a need to build a team of SMEs that can map this data across Europe. Over the span of two open calls, including a virtual one during the pandemic, EHDEN has identified and educated 26 SMEs to support mapping and sustainability. The next SME open call will take place March 15 – April 12, and more information will be available on the EHDEN website and social channels.

Educating the SMEs ultimately developed the foundation for the EHDEN Academy, which recently evolved to include courses in patient-level prediction and population-level effect estimation. Continued content development is a top priority for the EHDEN community throughout 2021.

There were more than 800 people enrolled in the EHDEN Academy as of Feb. 8, and approximately 50% of that total had been active over the prior 14 days. A strong concentration of that total was found in the U.S., the U.K., and Spain.

You can learn more about the EHDEN Academy through this video presentation from the 2020 OHDSI Global Symposium.

A recent tool developed within EHDEN to ensure the ETL quality by the data partners is the CDMInspection tool, an R Package to support quality control inspection of an OMOP-CDM instance. Among the CDMInspection checks are whether vocabularies are properly loaded, the quantity of unmapped codes, the speed of queries, and other infrastructure checks.

The chart to the right includes some of the primary goals throughout 2021, with focuses on the launch of the EHDEN Portal, research work with data partners, continuing to build the EHDEN Academy and work around sustainability for beyond the conclusion of project funding in 2024.

For more information on EHDEN, check out their official web site.

All OHDSI Community Calls, as well as links and other updates, are recorded and posted here.