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What to do with NULL Death dates in OMOP?

Implementers
#41

@Christian_Reich

The objective is to understand whether the death_date in the death table is the actual death date from a reliable source or whether it is an imputed value that is used as a proxy (with the field being mandatory there is no choice); and maybe the type of proxy.

I am open to the argument that the recorded death type could provide a hint on whether the source provides accurate death dates, but I am not sure it is sufficient.

The use cases would include any endeavor that relies on a precise death date to calculate survival time. In the best of cases, one would be able to discern whether the possible error (deviation of the listed death date from the actual death date) is none (actual death date), days, months or even years off.

#42

Ok, but thatā€™s your job at ETL time. If you think you have a robust method to do the imputation, and you checked that against the data where you do have the death date, you use it. If not, donā€™t put it in. The OMOP CDM assumes it presents facts ready to analyze. Not facts that need double checking before.

#43

Thank you. I think I got it. If I only have a death status / flag without date then I should NOT load this into OMOP CDM (yet).

#44

Correct. Maybe, if you have a narrow sequence of your data and you can see within, say, a month when the flag appeared. You could then do a death date good enough by month. That will probably be ok for most use cases.

#45

Understood. I see value in securing a minimum data quality standard before they are entered into OMOP CDM, especially if the resulting instance participates in larger studies across multiple instances.
I can easily work around the limitation (only populating the death table if a reasonable death date is available) by pulling in the death status from a non-CDM table for any query that needs it.

#46

Hi - Iā€™m new to OMOP, and working on a project. We have a different situation because our data must be de-identified, thus, we are only given a deceased flag/indicator - no date - under certain situations, like a person was > 89 yrs. Having the Death table with a NULLABLE death date is ideal in this situation. How do I socialize this idea?

#47

@Christian_Reich

Our site has a relative high percentage of deceased patients missing actual death date. I agree with @MPhilofsky that identifying last provider-person interaction isnā€™t easy. I am not confident how accurate the imputed death dates would be. Since OMOP 5.4 still require death date in the DEATH table, how about creating observation records for deceased patients who didnā€™t have death date and assigning them LOINC code LA10939-9 [Deceased]? It allows researchers to find and exclude all deceased patients if their study population are those who are still alive.

Thanks
Jack

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