Abstract
The Clinical Trials Network (CTN) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) recently launched a public portal (http://cde.drugabuse.gov) (1), which provides a single-source repository for CTN-recommended common data elements (CDEs) for substance use disorders (SUD) for use in electronic health record systems (EHRs) and clinical research (1, 2). A CDE in this context is a data element consisting of a question and enumerated set of possible values for responses precisely defined by standardized metadata descriptors (1). CDEs consisting of individual question/answer pairs can be combined into more complex questionnaires and case report forms or used when gathering medical information in the context of providing clinical care (1). Thus, CDEs describe semantic characteristics for a discrete piece of data, which will be collected, stored, or exchanged during the course of a study or health examination. This will facilitate exchange of standardized data because of the use of CDEs (1). In this manner, NIDA CDEs can be commonly applied to multiple data collection systems whether in research or clinical care and across different institutions, such that their intentional commonality with use of common data standards can improve data quality, facilitate data re-purposing, and promote data sharing (1, 2). This paper describes objectives and importance of the CTN CDEs initiative and portal to translational psychiatric research: To support harmonized use of EHR-compatible common data elements to enable exchange and integration of data to answer clinically meaningful questions of broad interest to SUD treatment research, thereby facilitating big-data biomedical science crossing boundaries between research and clinical care.
Highlights
The Clinical Trials Network (CTN) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) recently launched a public portal (1), which provides a single-source repository for CTN-recommended common data elements (CDEs) for substance use disorders (SUD) for use in electronic health record systems (EHRs) and clinical research (1, 2)
APPROACH Over a series of consensus-building meetings from 2010 to the present, the CTN has led a coordinated effort involving many United States (U.S.) federal government and state agencies, provider organizations, academic institutions, and professional societies to develop CDEs of SUD domains for both EHRs and SUD clinical research (2, 3). The objective of this NIDA-led initiative is to establish measure commonality for SUD care and research that could be integrated into primary care practices in general medical settings, by facilitating the uniform use of EHR-based CDEs (2, 3)
In order to advance such a system through U.S Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) qualityimprovement reporting and reimbursement programs (9), systematic integration of SUD care into medical settings is needed whereby persons seeking primary care are routinely screened for harmful substance use through validated EHR-based assessment tools (2, 3, 10–12)
Summary
The objective of this NIDA-led initiative is to establish measure commonality for SUD care and research that could be integrated into primary care practices in general medical settings, by facilitating the uniform use of EHR-based CDEs (2, 3). Integrating CDEs with actionable clinical decision support tools into EHRs of general medical settings may strengthen links between behavioral medicine and primary care in the context of new health reform delivery models, such as PatientCentered Medical Homes, Accountable Care Organizations, and Coordinated Care Organizations by facilitating standardized systematic data collection, health information exchange, and outcome reporting in these integrated health care systems.
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