March 2026

Bigger and Faster: The PCORnet Common Data Model gets an upgrade

One of the many challenges facing health researchers is that different health systems code data differently. The PCORnet Common Data Model, or CDM, solves this problem by standardizing millions of data points from the EHRs of its member health systems to create a common format that researchers can use to receive a clear, reliable answer from health systems across the country.

As a PCORnet Network Partner, PaTH recently joined in network-wide efforts to both increase the data available in the CDM and reduce the time it takes to run data queries. Informatics teams combed their local Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for several categories of data, including patient relationships (e.g., creating a link between a mother and baby), external medications (e.g., over the counter drugs), and Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs). PROs are central to PCORnet’s mission to support research that is focused on outcomes that matter to patients and their families, and making these data available in the CDM will help to further that mission.

Improvements also focused on reducing query run times, which required new hardware and innovative thinking about how data is organized. Eugene Sadhu, Associate Chief Research Informatics Officer at the University of Pittsburgh, discovered that by leveraging elements within our existing software, we could more easily run parallel or concurrent queries, and reduce overall query runtime. Research using real-world evidence is constantly growing, and PaTH is growing right along with it.

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