Data Quality– and Utility-Compliant Anonymization of Common Data Model–Harmonized Electronic Health Record Data: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Abstract

Background: The anonymization of Common Data Model (CDM)–converted EHR data is essential to ensure the data privacy in the use of harmonized health care data. However, applying data anonymization techniques can significantly affect many properties of the resulting data sets and thus biases research results. Few studies have reviewed these applications with a reflection of approaches to manage data utility and quality concerns in the context of CDM-formatted health care data. Objective: Our intended scoping review aims to identify and describe (1) how formal anonymization methods are carried out with CDM-converted health care data, (2) how data quality and utility concerns are considered, and (3) how the various CDMs differ in terms of their suitability for recording anonymized data. Methods: The planned scoping review is based on the framework of Arksey and O'Malley. By using this, only articles published in English will be included. The retrieval of literature items should be based on a literature search string combining keywords related to data anonymization, CDM standards, and data quality assessment. The proposed literature search query should be validated by a librarian, accompanied by manual searches to include further informal sources. Eligible articles will first undergo a deduplication step, followed by the screening of titles. Second, a full-text reading will allow the 2 reviewers involved to reach the final decision about article selection, while a domain expert will support the resolution of citation selection conflicts. Additionally, key information will be extracted, categorized, summarized, and analyzed by using a proposed template into an iterative process. Tabular and graphical analyses should be addressed in alignment with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist. We also performed some tentative searches on Web of Science for estimating the feasibility of reaching eligible articles. Results: Tentative searches on Web of Science resulted in 507 nonduplicated matches, suggesting the availability of (potential) relevant articles. Further analysis and selection steps will allow us to derive a final literature set. Furthermore, the completion of this scoping review study is expected by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023. Conclusions: Outlining the approaches of applying formal anonymization methods on CDM-formatted health care data while taking into account data quality and utility concerns should provide useful insights to understand the existing approaches and future research direction based on identified gaps. This protocol describes a schedule to perform a scoping review, which should support the conduction of follow-up investigations.