Identification of Migraine at Sutter Health: An Application of an EHR-Based Algorithm

Abstract

Background: Migraine is one of the most common and disabling disorders in the world. In the United States, 1 in 4 households is affected by it. With no diagnostic test, migraine is most commonly detected through patient interview and rule out of other causes of headache. Studies to identify patient populations for prevalence estimates or clinical research often involve costly and time-consuming population-based surveys or data collected from specialty headache clinics. To identify migraineurs in Sutter Health, we extracted data from electronic health records (EHR) and applied a migraine probability algorithm (MPA) that we previously developed in a separate large integrated health care system. Our goal was to identify a target population of migraineurs from which to recruit for future studies.