Standardized Categories
The OMOP CDM organizes tables into categories that match the color-coded regions on the CDM diagram. If you're coming from Epic, think of this as a re-organization of the same clinical data you already know — just structured around patients instead of encounters.
Person-centric, not encounter-centric
In Epic, you navigate from encounters to data. In OMOP, you navigate from patients to data. Encounters (visit_occurrence) are one of many tables linked to person — not the organizing spine.
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Clinical Data
The core research tables. Conditions, drugs, measurements, procedures, visits, observations, notes, devices, specimens, and derived elements (eras, episodes).
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Health System
Where care happens and who delivers it: providers, care sites, and geographic locations.
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Vocabularies
The mapping layer under everything — how ICD, CPT, NDC, and local codes translate to standard OMOP concepts. If you only learn one thing beyond the clinical tables, learn this.
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Health Economics
Cost and insurance coverage data. Sparse in EHR-derived OMOP (including Emory), but important for claims-linked analyses.
