After an exciting time at the 10th Annual OHDSI Global Symposium at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, NJ, SciForce is coming back with new energy! With over 470 experts gathered from around the world, our team, led by Polina Talapova, explored the latest tools and methods in OHDSI and OMOP. We tackled topics like data conversion, geospatial vocabularies, and Jackalope benchmarking, gaining valuable insights and sharing strategies to help move healthcare research forward. Educational Tutorial (October 22nd).
On October 22nd, we kicked off the event by leading an Educational Tutorial on how to use OHDSI Standardized Vocabularies in research. Polina Talapova, along with experts Anna Ostropolets, Azza Shoaibi, Vlad Korsik, and Oleg Zhuk, guided participants through essential steps like mapping clinical terms, building accurate conceptsets, and understanding vocabulary hierarchies. Sharing these practical skills helped participants apply vocabularies to their own research, making it a valuable session for everyone involved.
October 23rd was full of insights as we explored the latest in the OHDSI community. The main conference day offered a deep look into OHDSI’s current projects and future goals, emphasizing innovation, reproducibility, and openness. We reviewed a major study, LEGEND-T2DM, focused on diabetes treatments, and listened to talks that described new research, challenges, and practical uses for healthcare data.
One of the event's highlights was the Collaborator Showcase: Posters and Software Demo, in which we displayed three of our posters:
Sharing our work and seeing the community’s enthusiasm was beyond rewarding.
Geographic Information System (GIS) Workgroup Led by Andrew Williams, Kyle Zollo-Venecek, and Robert Miller, this session included a presentation from Polina Talapova and Jared Houghtaling on “Vocabularies Used for Representing Geospatial Data: GIS Vocabulary Package.” They shared insights into how combining geospatial and social data can enhance observational studies in healthcare and public health.
In this session, led by Anna Ostropolets, we presented “EHR Flowsheet Data Harmonization.” We discussed our approach to harmonizing EHR data, addressed unmet vocabulary needs, and outlined plans for 2025. The session was highly collaborative, with innovative ideas shared to expand the scope of observational research.
We’re incredibly grateful to the amazing people who made this journey possible: George Hripcsak, Patrick Ryan, Craig Sachson, Elisse Katzman, Andrew Williams, Marty Alvarez, and the incomparable Anna Ostropolets. Your guidance and support drive our passion to keep contributing to this incredible community! As we leave the symposium, we’re not just bringing back badges, gifts, and notes – we’re bringing home fresh ideas, valuable connections, and a stronger drive to use data to improve health outcomes worldwide. Here are some of our key takeaways:
- Better strategies for integrating standardized vocabularies into research workflows, helping make data more consistent and easier to understand.
- Insights on using geospatial and social data to add depth to observational studies, making findings more useful for public health.
- New methods for harmonizing EHR flowsheet data, addressing gaps in current vocabularies, and planning for smoother data integration by 2025.
- Lessons LEGEND-T2DM on using observational data to assess treatment outcomes, creating more evidence-based paths in healthcare.
With these insights and the connections we’ve made, we’re ready to drive change, break new ground, and shape the future of healthcare together!
