About the OHDSI Center

Who we are

We are the U.S. OHDSI hub for graduate education, research, and administrative and legal support. Based at Northeastern’s Roux Institute in Portland, Maine, we serve as your gateway to a global OHDSI community of epidemiologists, data scientists, clinicians, and learners. We harness high-quality, standardized observational health data to advance care for all.

A global community with worldwide impact

Working together across six continents and 74 countries, OHDSI members transform patient care using transparent research methods and standardized, open-source data.

Read about our seminal studies

A U.S. center led by healthcare innovators

Northeastern’s OHDSI Center includes faculty, research scientists, administrators, and staff dedicated to moving the needle in observational health research and education.

Meet our team

OHDSI: An evolving story

2009

U.S. FDA plants seeds of OHDSI

To assess long-term medication risks, the U.S. FDA and pharma companies launch the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership. OMOP uses more than 200 million electronic patient records to evaluate 14 epidemiological study designs.

2011

OMOP findings replicated

Using datasets from Europe, OMOP replicates its original findings. Reproducibility is the holy grail of observational research.

2014

OHDSI coordinating center launched

OMOP’s leaders create an administrative home in New York City for the OHDSI community at Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics.

2015

First OHDSI symposium and study

Researchers publish an international study to characterize treatment pathways.

2016

China and Korea chapters launched

2018

European Health Data and Evidence Network established

The EHDEN network drives adoption of the OMOP Common Data Model and launches the European chapter and symposium.

2019

Australia, Japan, Singapore chapters launched

2020

OHDSI gains worldwide acceptance

OHDSI’s data network contains 2.1 billion patient records representing 18 countries. U.S., Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and other chapters host annual symposia.

2021

OHDSI Center launched at Northeastern

Northeastern launches the OHDSI Center at its Roux Institute campus in Portland, Maine, the first administrative hub for academic, research, and legal services in the U.S.

Our role as an engine for impact

The OHDSI Center is one of Northeastern’s signature Impact Engines. These cross-disciplinary clusters of faculty, learners, and partners are dedicated to solving interconnected challenges of global importance, such as the lack of transparency and consistency in research that shapes healthcare.

Learn about Northeastern’s Impact Engines

I study frailty, a clinical syndrome in older patients. I rely on Brianne Olivieri-Mui at the OHDSI Center for help in understanding and working with extremely complex data. She brings deep expertise and enormous passion to every project, not to mention invaluable collaborators.
Sandra Shi
Assistant Scientist, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

As a PhD student at Northeastern, I have access to OHDSI Center faculty with expertise in the latest methods and tools for real-world data analysis. These resources are indispensable for my coursework and research in population health.
Victor Castro
Data scientist, Mass General Brigham; student, Northeastern’s part-time Industry PhD Program

The OHDSI network’s consistent rigor of investigation offers a unique avenue to information clinicians can trust to guide diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. OHDSI shows us the true power of observational data to inform patient care.
Rohan Khera
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation

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