Harvesting metadata in clinical care: a crosswalk between FHIR, OMOP, CDISC and openEHR metadata

Metadata describe information about data source, type of creation, structure, status and semantics and are prerequisite for preservation and reuse of medical data. To overcome the hurdle of disparate data sources and repositories with heterogeneous data formats a metadata crosswalk was initiated, based on existing standards. FAIR Principles were included, as well as data format specifications. The metadata crosswalk is the foundation of data provision between a Medical Data Integration Center (MeDIC) and researchers, providing a selection of metadata information for research design and requests. Based on the crosswalk, metadata items were prioritized and categorized to demonstrate that not one single predefined standard meets all requirements of a MeDIC and only a maximum data set of metadata is suitable for use. The development of a convergence format including the maximum data set is the anticipated solution for an automated transformation of metadata in a MeDIC.

Automated summary

The importance of metadata in the preservation and reuse of medical data is discussed in this article, and a metadata crosswalk approach is proposed to overcome the barriers of disparate data sources and repositories with heterogeneous data formats.