The Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD) is an electronic medical record database, containing high-quality, de-identified data from

primary care Primary care is a model of health care that supports first-contact, accessible, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated person-focused care. It aims to optimise population health and reduce disparities across the groups by ensuring equitable ...

medical records from across the UK. It has been used to support healthcare research by providing access to real-world data on chronic diseases, treatments, and patient outcomes. Widely used for

epidemiological Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

studies and improving clinical practice, the OPCRD helps advance evidence-based care and inform

healthcare policy Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society".World Health Organization''Health Policy'' accessed 22 March 2011(archived 5 February 2011) According ...

Data

As of January, 2024, the data in the OPCRD is taken from over 1,100 general practices in the UK and includes 24 million unique de-identified, longitudinal patient lives. The data is supplemented by data from patient-reported questionnaires, including sub-registries with enhanced data from

asthma Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...

COPD Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. GOLD defines COPD as a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by chronic respiratory s ...

, and

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. Within the OPCRD, patients have a mean duration of 11.7 years’ follow-up, with a majority having key summary data from birth to last data entry. OPCRD extracts from all major UK electronic health record ( EHR) systems and all

clinical coding A medical classification is used to transform descriptions of medical diagnoses or procedures into standardized statistical code in a process known as clinical coding. Diagnosis classifications list diagnosis codes, which are used to track disea ...

schemes. The whole of the OPCRD is mapped to the OMOP common data model, which enables international real world evidence analysis. OPCRD is a member of the European Health Data and Evidence Network.

History

The OPC Research Database was established in 2010 by David Price, Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine at the

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

. The database is held by Optimum Patient Care (OPC), a UK-based

not-for-profit A not-for-profit or non-for-profit organization (NFPO) is a Legal Entity, legal entity that does not distribute surplus funds to its members and is formed to fulfill specific objectives. While not-for-profit organizations and Nonprofit organ ...

social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ha ...

. OPC’s focus was initially on asthma and COPD, but the company has since expanded to include

rare diseases A rare disease is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population. In some parts of the world, the term orphan disease describes a rare disease whose rarity results in little or no funding or research for treatments, without financ ...

and wider chronic medical conditions. The OPC Research Database contains data on almost all medical conditions recorded in primary care.

Information Collected by OPCRD

All data collected are pseudonymised at the site of the contributing GP practices using secure extraction software installed on-site at the practices. No direct patient-identifiable or

sensitive information Information sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others. Loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorized access to sensitive information can ...

is collected or leaves a GP practice, unless agreed otherwise for the purpose of secondary care linkage. Patients who have withdrawn from data sharing via their GP or via the national data opt-out scheme in England are not extracted by OPCRD and are thus not available for research. The following are among the data collected within OPCRD: * Deidentified longitudinal patient-level data. * Demographic information. * Treatments and prescriptions. * Test results and measurements. * Laboratory results. * Diagnoses. * Symptoms. * Referrals. * Coded data (Read/SNOMED codes) and OMOP mapped. * Sub-registries with enhanced data from asthma, COPD, and Covid-19. * A subset of high-quality data on biologic prescribing. * Coding of free text prescribing instructions. OPCRD also has the ability to enhance data for specific needs, support

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

recruitment, and collect real-life endpoints for clinical trials.

Standards and Accreditations

The Optimum Patient Care Research Database is a member of HDR UK, and has received approval from the NHS Health Research Authority Research Ethics Committee. Access to the OPCRD is governed by an independent third-party approval committee (ADEPT) who ensure research on the database is ethical and done with scientific rigour.²³ Access to the OPCRD is available for ethically approved research studies only, is subject to entering into strict and limited data sharing agreements, with access provided through a trusted research environment. The OPCRD is held and maintained by Optimum Patient Care, a not-for-profit social enterprise that offers a wide range of clinical trials services and quality improvement evaluations to GP practices and other clients in the UK.

Studies and Publications

OPCRD is regularly used in clinical, epidemiological, and

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

research. The dataset has been used for Quality Improvement projects and research in chronic diseases including, but not limited to, Covid-19, COPD, asthma, and

cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina, heart attack), heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumati ...

. To date, over 110 publications have used data from the OPC Research Database, which are outlined on the OPC website.{{cite web , title=Publications {{! Optimum Patient Care Research Database , url=https://opcrd.optimumpatientcare.org/publications , website=OPCRD , language=en

References

External links

OPC Research Database homepage

Optimum Patient Care (OPC)

European Health Data and Evidence Network

HDR UK
Medical databases in the United Kingdom Medical education in the United Kingdom Medical education Medical databases Pharmaceutical industry Health research Clinical data management Clinical trials Clinical trial organizations