HERON-UK – the HEalth data Research OMOP Network – enables secure, transparent, and reproducible health data research by supporting research using routinely collected healthcare data from over 50 million patients across seven data partners in the UK. Data within each partner are mapped to common standards (the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model) which greatly enhances the possibilities for collaborative research.
By analysing data within partner organisations who share only de-identified, aggregated/summarised results, the network supports collaborative research while protecting patient privacy and promoting open, reproducible science.
HERON-UK partners
HERON-UK was funded for the first two years by Health Data Research UK and is co-ordinated by the Botnar Research Centre at the University of Oxford. Alongside DataLoch (and our colleagues in Edinburgh Cancer Informatics), the other data partners are:
- Barts Health NHS Trust (London)
- Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), part of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for Children NHS Foundation Trust (London)
- Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (London)
To facilitate collaborative projects, each partner brings primary and/or secondary care data that they have mapped locally to the OMOP Common Data Model. At DataLoch, we have linked primary and secondary care data from the Lothian region, the mapping of which has been worked on in collaboration with Edinburgh Cancer Informatics (see this Standardised Data page for more details).
Key results from the collaboration
In collaboration with our HERON-UK network colleagues, we have completed our first project that focussed on the use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance using over 13.8 million patient records across the UK to test the federated analysis approach.
The outcome of this work showed, as hypothesised, that the use of Watch antibiotics – classified as medications that have higher resistance potential – varied according to whether they were prescribed by GPs (for milder infections in the community) or hospital clinicians (for more severe infections found in hospitals). Although the analysis shows there is some consistency in antibiotic use, there is still variability between regions, especially within hospitals. This finding demonstrates the importance of national guidelines, that cover both primary and secondary care settings, to reduce the risk of infections becoming resistant to specific antibiotics.
As a secondary objective, the project was a proof-of-concept success in analysing OMOP data across a federated (multi-region) network without the movement of individual patient data.
Poster: HERON-UK Watch antibiotic OMOP analysis
Pre-print journal article: Use of antibiotics commonly associated with antimicrobial resistance
The HERON-UK partnership continues with further projects in progress.
Benefits for health research in the UK
HERON-UK enables researchers to access large-scale, real-world healthcare data in a privacy-preserving way: individual data does not leave the host organisations.
By securely connecting data from millions of patients across multiple organisations, the network can support more robust and representative studies, accelerate collaboration, improve reproducibility through open study code, and generate insights that help improve patient care, public health, and health policy.
Participating in the network encourages data partners to think about how they have mapped their data to common standards, explore the implications of their mapping decisions with other partners in a genuine research setting. This approach allows collaborative agreement on conventions which then enables data to be analysed from multiple centres and compared in a meaningful way.
Next steps
The HERON-UK network is continuing to develop new opportunities to build on our initial efforts and is developing tools and conventions for data partners to use, including for coordinating their own studies.
Colleagues in Edinburgh and Leeds have put together a draft proposal for a pilot oncology study (colorectal cancer) for interested data partners within the HERON-UK network. There is a survey which data partners can fill in to let us know about their interest and level of data and readiness they have for participation. The study is designed to have different participation tiers so that partners can be involved at different levels depending on their data and resources.
Data partnership expression of interest survey
Further information about the HERON-UK network can be found on this collaborative website:
About the HERON-UK network
Case Studies
