Data Access Framework

Project Background

The Data Access Framework (DAF) project focused on the identification, testing, and validation of the standards necessary to access and extract data from within an organization’s health information technology (IT) systems, from an external organization’s health IT systems, or from health IT systems across multiple organizations. This could be accomplished by standardizing how data requests are specified and satisfied.

This project also included a component focused on research needs, called DAF for Research, which developed technical standards for accessing, querying, and aggregating electronic health record (EHR) data for multiple patients across multiple organizations using a standard mechanism. Widespread use of standards could enable multiple applications, including mobile applications, to expand the ability of users to create value from their data without having to rely on predefined access paths.

Project Dates

This project began in 2013 and ended in 2017.

Project Goal

The goals of this project were to:

• Reduce the barriers to extracting granular data from clinical sources;
• Simplify the data mapping process;
• Expand researchers’ ability to access patient- and population-level data for patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) using standardized mechanisms; and
• Leverage the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) so that third-party applications can provide additional value for PCOR and other health services research.

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