Clinical data repository

A Clinical Data Repository (CDR) is a real-time database that consolidates data from a variety of clinical sources to present a unified view of a single patient. It is optimized to allow clinicians to retrieve data for a single patient rather than to identify a population of patients with common characteristics or to facilitate the management of a specific clinical department. Typical data types which are often found within a CDR include: clinical laboratory test results, patient demographics, pharmacy information, radiology reports and images, pathology reports, hospital admission, discharge and transfer dates, ICD-9 codes, discharge summaries, and progress notes.

A CDR adds complexity by adding another system, a database and storage system, that provider organizations must own and operate. In most cases the additional system stores information that already exists in electronic form on an ancillary system.

Managing such large data repositories is expensive. As the CDR grows and becomes “The” warehouse for all clinical data more effort (time, people, money) is invested to ensure the data is safe, reliable, and always available. This is the “Achilles Heal” of the CDR.

The idea of placing clinical results in a single system so that policies and procedures can be put in place to ensure adequate back-up, archiving, and redundancy has great appeal. The downsize is the repository becomes very large and the database very complex, and these factors drive the cost of keeping the CDR available 24/7 higher and higher over time.

Alternative methods to accomplish the same goal are a Virtual Database EMR and a Clinical Transaction Repository EMR.