Hospital del Mar and the Hospital del Mar Research Institute coordinate, together with IDIAP Jordi Gol, the Spanish Node of the OHDSI Europe Chapter, the international research network using health data. This Spanish Node brings together more than 25 institutions and tech companies from across the country to manage and promote Big Data studies carried out with Real World Data from electronic health records to generate scientific evidence (Real World Evidence).

Dr. Miguel Ángel Mayer, from the Management Control Directorate of Hospital del Mar, and Dr. Talita Duarte, from the Real World Epidemiology Research Group (RWEpi) at IDIAP Jordi Gol, are the coordinators of this node. The initiative is based on the use of data standardized with OHDSI’s OMOP Common Data Model, an international network of researchers and clinical databases. This standard allows data to be shared in a common format, facilitating interdisciplinary research, access to millions of clinical data points, large-scale analyses, and the application of advanced bioinformatics methodologies.

“This allows us to work in a new global scenario that was not possible until now: developing medical research in a network with millions of data points from very different institutions and in a federated manner,” notes Dr. Mayer. The main objective of the node is to facilitate collaboration between its members and the health administration to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge at both the national and European levels, for the benefit of society, patients, and the general public.