Can you discuss your background and career journey?

I am a vitreoretinal specialist by training. After completing my undergraduate studies and medical school at Columbia University, I pursued an ophthalmology residency at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University, followed by a vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at the Duke Eye Center. I then returned to Wilmer as faculty to start a career as a clinician-scientist focusing on vision loss and diabetes. During my NIH K grant, I also earned a master’s degree in informatics from Johns Hopkins University where I learned about OHDSI and the OMOP CDM.

You learned about OHDSI/OMOP when putting together a NIH grant related to vision loss and diabetes. What was the major challenge you were facing, and how did OHDSI/OMOP impact your effort?

My NIH K grant focuses on understanding how social determinants of health impact diabetic retinopathy care and how we can leverage informatics solutions to address the problem of vision loss from diabetes. One of my goals was to utilize data in the electronic health record to identify patients with diabetes who are at high risk for not receiving eye care, experiencing vision loss, and having social risk factors. I envisioned that the predictive algorithm I developed at Johns Hopkins could be implemented across various institutions, enabling a broad approach to tackling vision loss from diabetes. I discovered that the OMOP CDM would facilitate this goal. By building my prediction algorithm on the OMOP CDM, I can easily deploy it across the entire OHDSI network.

When the OHDSI community demonstrated a beginning-to-end pipeline for network studies, they used one you proposed to be the focus example during weekly community calls. What were your 1-2 biggest takeaways from that 2-month experience of learning all facets around leading a network study?

Leading a network study for the SOS Challenge was an incredible experience! I think my main takeaways are that: 1) it requires significant effort, and 2) it truly takes a village.

The SOS Challenge videos demonstrate the extensive work involved in conducting a network study—designing the study, creating the cohorts, solidifying the analysis plan, and executing the analysis packages. However, it doesn’t show the groundwork necessary to arrive at a clinically relevant question. That process required learning about the OMOP CDM, familiarizing myself with the analytic tools in OHDSI, reviewing prior studies, and developing an understanding of what can and cannot be addressed within the OHDSI framework. I think this is an important point, particularly for clinicians like myself. Getting started in the OHDSI community might seem hard and daunting, but it’s incredibly rewarding once you get the basics down. Today, there are numerous educational initiatives aimed at lowering this entry barrier for newcomers through resources such as classes and videos.

As for my second takeaway, it truly takes a village. What we accomplished in the nine weeks for the SOS Challenge would not have been possible without the collective effort of the OHDSI community, both past and present. We relied on the foundation laid by both the vocabulary team and the CDM team, as well as the software developers and biostatisticians who created the analytic packages. Furthermore, the collaboration of clinicians, methodological experts, and software engineers was essential to the execution of the SOS Challenge study. Being part of the OHDSI community has been incredible, humbling, and immensely rewarding!

Between your study, the Eye Care & Vision Research Workgroup and the recent NEI challenge, we are seeing increasing efforts to use observational data for vision research. What are some of the critical evidence gaps around vision that you hope OHDSI research can help answer?

We in the ophthalmology community are incredibly excited about the potential of the OHDSI community for advancing observational research in vision health. However, many clinically relevant questions remain unanswered due to a lack of critical data, such as detailed ophthalmic examinations and ocular imaging. Through the work of the Eye Care & Vision Research Workgroup, we aim to enrich the OMOP CDM with the necessary data to enable more extensive and impactful vision-related research. We are particularly eager to better understand the link between ocular and systemic disease, investigate rare diseases, and advance the development of precision medicine.

You went from relative OHDSI newcomer to network study lead last spring. Beyond the science, what is it about the community that helped you flourish in that role, and what does it say about how others can join and make an immediate impact in OHDSI?

For newcomers, OHDSI can be daunting! The best advice that I received early on from George Hripcsak was to “just jump in.” This means actively joining a workgroup you are passionate about, volunteering for opportunities that arise, and engaging with others in the community. I have found that the people in the OHDSI community are incredibly inclusive, friendly, and approachable. It’s this sense of community that truly makes OHDSI special.

How meaningful was it to win the 2024 Titan Award for Clinical Applications?

Winning the 2024 Titan Award for Clinical Applications was incredibly humbling! Conducting these Network Studies truly takes a village, and I view myself as just a small part of a larger collective that contributed to our study’s success. This award is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in the SOS Challenge and should go to all those who participated!