Using Historical, Electronic Health Record Data to Bolster a Cluster Randomized Trial of Early Childhood Obesity

• Activity Number: 311 - Overcoming Practical Challenges in the Design and Analysis of Medical Studies Using Electronic Health Records
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 1, 2017 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Health Policy Statistics Section
• Author(s): Jonathan Schildcrout* and Aihua Bian
• Companies: Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center
• Keywords: electronic health records ; longitudinal data ; comparative effectiveness

Abstract

The Greenlight Study is a cluster randomized clinical trial that seeks to examine two strategies for reducing early childhood obesity in susceptible populations. Since the number of participating clinics was small, we retrospectively ascertained data from each EHR for non-participants during time periods that were prior to and conincident with Greenlight. By collecting historical EHR data, we have the opportunity to examine within clinic contrasts in treatment effectiveness. However, to improve the likelihood for eliminating participation bias, we rely on the data from non-participants who, in fact, received the clinic-associated intervention. In this talk, we will discuss longitudinal analyses of Greenlight and EHR data collected from non-participants. We will highlight several of the challenges and lessons learned from using EHR data to bolster this cluster randomized clinical trial of early childhood obesity.