Clinical Practice Research Datalink courts potential users

We received on Friday our invitation to the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Users Meeting that will be held at the MHRA offices in London on 24th May 2012, consisting of a series of short presentations by representatives of CPRD and external partner organisations to give "further insight, and an opportunity for input, into the current and future aims of CPRD."

The background we have covered severally before (see here and here): "CPRD is the new English NHS observational data and interventional research service, jointly funded by the NHS National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It combines the piloting work of the Research Capabilities Programme (RCP) and the existing General Practice Research Database (GPRD)."

CPRD services are designed to maximise the way anonymised NHS clinical data can be linked to enable many types of observational research and deliver research outputs that are beneficial to improving and safeguarding public health. CPRD will act to provide services to a wide range of researchers and the aim of the Users Meeting will be to ensure that its plans meet the needs of the broad cross section of researchers in academia, the NHS and commercial companies both in the UK and globally.

The specific topics that will be covered on the day include:

• Pragmatic and Phase III - IV clinical trials
• Multidimensional data quality
• Hospital prescribing data
• Models for linkage
• Disease and patient group data marts

The day will provide "several opportunities for potential users to raise and discuss their priorities and requirements" to ensure CPRD meets researchers' needs.

It is possible that we won't be able to attend ourself so if any of our readers are planning on going along, let us know and we'll get in touch to see if you want to post some feedback on these pages!

Clinical Practice Research Datalink is finally here - or is it?

The new Clinical Practice Research Datalink about which we have blogged much in the past has finally arrived (http://www.cprd.com/intro.asp) amid a certain amount of fanfare - see this from Pharma Times, this from PMLive and this from GP magazine.

 You may notice that the GPRD pages now redirect to this site and to a certain extent, this is largely a rebranding exercise at the moment. Behind the scenes a team at the DoH are trying to ensure that major data sources are willing and able to engage with this initiative but the speed at which they come online remains to be seen. We'll fill you in further on plans for a researchers data-catalogue interface as this project advances - and if CPRD are not offering that just yet, perhaps the MRC are - we'll get you up to date with the MRC's Data Support Service before the week is out.

General Practice data for research

We have just read, courtesy of eHealth Insider that "the NHS Information Centre is on the verge of having all GP clinical systems suppliers signed up to the General Practice Extraction Service. Emis, Microtest, iSoft and INPS have signed up to extract and communicate data to the NHS IC, and TPP expects to have a contract signed within weeks."


For more information on the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), see the NHS IC GPES page which currently only mentions the contract with EMIS and whilst it describes the value of GP data, does not allude to its use for research but only in commissioning despite asserting that "GP patient records are the most complete record of a patient's health within the NHS. They comprise a wealth of information about patient care, the prevalence of diseases and treatments given."

So where does this leave services like GPRD, THIN and QRESEARCH. Well, we know that GPES won't be fully up and running for another year at least, and that GPRD will become the CPRD  (Clinical Practice Research Datalink) if all goes to plan. In the interim, as per this from the Health Protection Agency, GPRD and QRESEARCH will still be providing primary care data for research, but what will the landscape look like by the end of 2013?

Research Capability Programme's Health Research Support Service - UCL report on the Pilot's effectiveness in Primary Care

Happy New Year and apologies for our lack of recent posts - we're back with some interesting stuff in the pipeline on data integration platforms for service delivery and research (Oracle, Orion, OpenClinica, IBM, Cerner etc.) coming tomorrow.

For now, we should direct you to University College London's report on the "Health Research Support Service Pilot in Primary Care: facilitators and barriers to successful implementation at a national level" - an independent evaluation.

The report contains good feedback from key stakeholders including many patients from the GP practices involved in the Primary Care part of the Pilot. If you're not aware of the aims and status of the National Institute for Health Research's Research Capability Programme and the Pilot Health Research Support Service, check out our links to them and our notes on the Clinical Practice Research Datalink which will take the service forward.

Amongst the key observations from the UCL report were:

On the sample group:

"There were only two practices involved in the pilot and these were strong research practices.  This means the practice staff were used to dealing with research projects and the patients were aware of research, even if they had not previously taken part in it.  Moreover the patients who participated were self-selected and were generally older and educated to a high level.  It may be more difficult to engage both staff and patients in non-research practices."

On patient attitudes:

"There was widespread support for the concept of the HRSS.  The vast majority of patients stated that they felt the HRSS was a good idea and a number highlighted potential benefits that they felt the HRSS would bring about. 'Giving something back’ to the NHS emerged as an important motivation for participating in the HRSS pilot in primary care.  The majority of patients who participated in this evaluation were happy for their GP practice to share their patient data with the HRSS pilot in primary care."

On the programme's communications efforts:

"Levels of understanding about the detail of the HRSS varied and very few people had a good understanding.  One patient who opted out of the HRSS stated that she would have opted in if she had had clearer, more detailed information about the HRSS pilot in primary care."

IT issues facing UK GPs - particularly EMIS users

If you are interested in primary care IT and in particular in the developments around EMIS Web - you could do a lot worse than to read Neil Paul's article on eHealth Insider - check out the comments too.

And also this new article in the same ezine: EMIS Web installations put back