EHR Data & the Importance of Case Definitions in Disease Surveillance

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

UBC is proud to announce the publication of a paper titled “Using EHR data to identify coronavirus infections in hospitalized patients: Impact of case definitions on disease surveillance” in the International Journal of Medical Informatics. This paper features contributions from Senior Real World Data Epidemiologist Irene Cosmatos, Senior Principle Statistician Janet Ramsey, and Data Analytics Project Manager Michael Bulgrien.

Using two different case definitions, this research tracked the number, characteristics, and outcomes of patients that were hospitalized with COVID-19. This highlights the discrepancies when counting COVID-19 cases with or without laboratory confirmation in the EHR. It also explores the variability in lab testing across different geography and demographics. Ultimately, tracking novel diseases using EHR needs to carefully consider case definitions since testing is more limited and diagnostic codes are still evolving.

You can read the full paper here.

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