Maximising the potential for linked-healthcare datasets for clinically and policy relevant epidemiological research

CegedimRx develops and markets data products which are used in health service and life sciences research. This includes the THIN and Electronic Prescription Service Insights (EPSI) datasets. They provide THIN to academic and industry partners. CegedimRx is in the product development phase of EPSI, having completed the work to source the data from the electronic prescription service (EPS) process, the next step is to develop this into a data product with validated capabilities and use cases. This is the purpose of our collaboration, with the potential to lead onto other phases of work together. The initial phase can be defined in terms of capabilities and use cases which derive from the unique data in the EPSI dataset. Then, capabilities and use cases can be derived from linking the EPSI dataset to other datasets, firstly in the THIN. It is envisaged that this will lead onto EPSI linkage to Health Episode Statistics (HES), which CegedimRx hold a license for. The combined THIN – EPSI – HES linkage provides further potential value which could be provided to the market for research. Dr Gorton has experience using HES data linked to other large Electronic Health Records (EHR). These projects will lead to peer-reviewed publication and the latter opportunity is ripe for development as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) once our working partnership is developed.  

As CegedimRx works in hybrid format, many of these interactions will be through virtual means and within a trusted research environment (via VPN access). This is a particularly good time for Dr Gorton to work with CegedimRx due to a refresh in the research and development team.  As part of the onboarding, data scientists and epidemiologists will complete projects which this collaboration can direct.  Dr Gorton is well-placed to work on this partnership as she is a community pharmacist by background, thereby understanding patient and prescription flow; and has PhD level epidemiological training, with experience using large EHRs  e.g. CPRD, SAIL Databank.   

Building a strong, mutual relationship with CegedimRx can enable us to provide clinical-academic input into the utilisation of the EPSI and become partners of choice for this dataset. This can lead to data access opportunities within University of Huddersfield research groups, including all her affiliated centres and institution.