Development of prostate cancer research database with the clinical data warehouse technology for direct linkage with electronic medical record system

PURPOSE In spite of increased prostate cancer patients, little is known about the impact of treatments for prostate cancer patients and outcome of different treatments based on nationwide data. In order to obtain more comprehensive information for Korean prostate cancer patients, many professionals urged to have national system to monitor the quality of prostate cancer care. To gain its objective, the prostate cancer database system was planned and cautiously accommodated different views from various professions. METHODS This prostate cancer research database system incorporates information about a prostate cancer research including demographics, medical history, operation information, laboratory, and quality of life surveys. And, this system includes three different ways of clinical data collection to produce a comprehensive data base; direct data extraction from electronic medical record (EMR) system, manual data entry after linking EMR documents like magnetic resonance imaging findings and paper-based data collection for survey from patients. RESULTS We implemented clinical data warehouse technology to test direct EMR link method with St. Mary's Hospital system. Using this method, total number of eligible patients were 2,300 from 1997 until 2012. Among them, 538 patients conducted surgery and others have different treatments. CONCLUSIONS Our database system could provide the infrastructure for collecting error free data to support various retrospective and prospective studies.