Clinical Data Warehouse
The Clinical Data Warehouse is composed of data from 2007 to present and encompasses approximately 2.8 million individual patients of all ages from across South Carolina. It includes inpatient, outpatient and emergency department encounters; diagnoses and procedures; medication orders and administrations; laboratory results; and height/weight measurements.
Background
Clinical data is a powerful enabler of scientific discovery that can lead to new technologies, pharmaceuticals, and improved processes. Access to relevant clinical data remains a significant barrier for many researchers. HSSC has created a statewide Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW) and data management platform that supports data-driven clinical trials and medical research in South Carolina and with strategic partners nationwide. This unique system gathers and aggregates patient data such as demographics, diagnoses, and medications, and then makes the clinical information available to researchers. The goal is to accelerate research that may potentially result in life-changing medical solutions.
HSSC’s Clinical Data Warehouse has five components:
- Data sharing agreement and governance framework
- Master Person (Patient) Index that allows for matching an individual patient’s clinical records from multiple information systems
- Interface engine that supports the collection and transformation of clinical data from members’ electronic health records systems and conversion into standardized formats
- Operational data store (database) that integrates data from multiple sources for additional data manipulation
- Analytical data store (database) that is the central database for storing and managing aggregated, normalized data
How can I use the CDW?
Access to de-identified patient counts is available to researchers through a consultation request. Access to higher level data requires approval through the data request process.
The Clinical Data Warehouse includes inpatient, outpatient, emergency department encounters, diagnoses, procedures, and much more! You can view our latest data dictionary here and the vital and labs data dictionary here.
The Data Collaboration Agreement (DCA) Governance Committee (the “GC”) has primary oversight of the governance of the CDW and of the on-going development of policies and procedures to manage and operate the CDW. you can view the governance structure here.
To receive a dataset, you start with the submission of an electronic data request. Once a data request has been submitted, you will be contacted for a consultation with an HSSC honest broker who will help you prepare your request for review by the Data Request Review Committee (DRRC). After approval of a data request by the DRRC you will be provided an approval letter to submit to your institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). After the project is approved by your institution’s IRB and there are no further changes, the HSSC honest broker will work with you in receiving the dataset.
A researcher shall agree to be bound by a Data Use Agreement (DUA).
To request access to data from the Clinical Data Warehouse for research purposes, you must be a faculty member, medical staff member, employee, or sponsored end-user that is engaged in healthcare-related research activities of a participating institution. A researcher shall agree to be bound by a Data Use Agreement (DUA).
To request a limited-data set or identified data for research purposes, please submit a data request by clicking here. Please note that IRB approval is required before identified data can be provided.
Requests are reviewed on a monthly basis.
Request Information
Do you still have a question about the Clinical Data Warehouse? Please complete the following form and we will respond promptly. Please provide a detailed description to ensure that we have the information needed to assist you.