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Expected timezone for date fields

Developers
#1

Hi Folks

What should be the timezone for date/time fields? I’m guessing the timezone of where dat were collected, but I couldn’t find that anywhere in the documentation.

This probably have some impact when working with multiple-timezones sites in the same omop database.

cheers

dfcp

#2

If you are using one EHR, just use the data in it. If you are doing a federated OMOP load, choose a standard and use it everywhere. In many of the tables, DateTimes are optional anyway and only dates are required.

For studies such as drug interactions, this is less than optimal, but it is what it is.

#3

Hi everyone,

I think this is still an important issue. Even though datetime attributes are optional, they should include timezone info (in the case of PostgreSQL: timestamptz). This should not be a problem on a database level because the server will adjust to its own timezone. It will make ETL pipelines more robust and less prone to conversion errors. Many frameworks (such as Django) will also support timezones in a way that it improves the overall experience of the user.

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t