POLAR – „POLypharmazie, Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen und Risiken“ – wie können Daten aus der stationären Krankenversorgung zur Beurteilung beitragen?

Background: As the number of concomitantly used drugs increases, the prevalence of medication risks increases. These include, for example, drug interactions which may reduce or increase the desired and undesired effects of individual drugs. Objectives: The POLypharmacy, drug interActions and Risks (POLAR) project aims to contribute to the detection of medication risks in patients with polymedication using methods and processes of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) on the basis of “real world data” (inpatient treatment data of university hospitals). In the article, the specific clinical problems are presented and illustrated based on an evaluation example. Materials and methods: Specific pharmacological questions are mapped algorithmically and applied in distributed analyses in 13 data integration centers. An essential prerequisite for the application of these algorithms is the core data set structure of the MII, which relies on international information technology, interoperability, and terminology standards. Results: In POLAR, it was demonstrated for the first time that inpatient treatment data can be made usable across sites for research questions on drug-related problems based on coordinated, interoperable data exchange formats in a privacy-compliant manner. Conclusions: An interim report from the POLAR project shows the first, preliminary result of an analysis. In addition, more general discussions of technical, legal, communicative opportunities and challenges are presented, with a focus on using inpatient treatment data as “real world data” for research purposes.