Data resource profile: Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Aurum

TLDR

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) is a UK government‑run, anonymised primary‑care database that, since 2017, has expanded to CPRD Aurum, a resource covering over 19 million patients from EMIS Web GP practices and linked to national secondary‑care, deprivation, and death‑registration data. CPRD Aurum aggregates the full historic coded electronic health records from participating EMIS Web GP practices, providing a comprehensive, routinely collected dataset that includes deceased and departed patients and allows for opt‑out exclusions. By September 2018, CPRD Aurum comprised 7 million living patients from EMIS Web practices, accounting for roughly 13 % of England’s population.

Abstract

Data resource basicsClinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) is a UK government, not-for-profit research service that has been supplying anonymized primary care data for public health research for more than 30 years.In October 2017 CPRD launched a new data resource called CPRD Aurum.CPRD Aurum is a database containing routinely collected data from primary care practices in England, capturing diagnoses, symptoms, prescriptions, referrals and tests for over 19 million patients as of September 2018 (Figure 1).Primary care data in CPRD Aurum have been linked to national secondary care databases as well as deprivation and death registration data (Table 1). UK primary careThe United Kingdom's (UK) National Health Service (NHS) is a publicly funded health service, free at the point of use.General practitioners (GPs) are considered the 'gatekeepers' of the NHS, referring patients to secondary care and diagnostic tests. 1 Over 98% of the population is registered at one of the 7300 GP practices in England. 2 A unique patient identifier, the NHS number, is used in primary, secondary and tertiary care settings, enabling linkages to other data sources. 3There are four principal GP IT systems (primary care patient management software system) suppliers in England 4 and the largest coverage is provided by EMIS Health V R (EMIS Web V R software is used in 56% of English practices). 5CPRD Aurum, discussed in this Data Resource Profile, encompasses EMIS Web V R GP practices that have agreed to contribute data to this database on a daily basis.CPRD also collects data from practices using Vision V R software that contribute to the CPRD GOLD database, which has been used in epidemiological research for 30 years. 6 CPRD AurumCPRD Aurum includes patient electronic healthcare records (EHR) collected routinely in primary care.When a practice agrees to contribute patient data to CPRD Aurum, CPRD receives a full historic collection of the coded part of the practice's electronic health records, which includes data on deceased patients and those who have left the practice.Since 25 May 2018, individuals in England can optout of sharing their confidential patient information for research purposes 7 and, as of 1 September 2018, 2.7% of the English primary care registered population had opted-out. 8 As of September 2018, CPRD Aurum included 7 million patients who were alive and registered at EMIS Web V R currently contributing practices (Table 2), representing around 13% of the population of England.This number