Ascertainment of EMR-based Clinical Covariates Among Patients Receiving Oral and Non-insulin Injected Hypoglycemic Therapy

Association of Clinical Covariates With Non-insulin Diabetes Medication Initiation Using Electronic Medical Records (EMR)

The objective of this study is to identify EMR-based clinical covariates and quantify their association with the prescribing of each specific type 2 diabetes (T2DM) medication under investigation. This will include an assessment of how well these covariates are captured through claims data proxies, and their potential to confound comparative research of T2DM medications.

Purpose:

Inclusion criteria:

• Dispensing of an oral or non-insulin injected hypoglycemic medication between May 2011 and June 2012
• Diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus
• Presence of electronic medical records (for the EMR-based subset)

Exclusion criteria:

• Age <18 at T2DM medication initiation
• Missing or ambiguous age or sex information
• At least one diagnosis of type 1 diabetes mellitus
• Less than 6 months enrolment in the database preceding the date of the first dispensing
• Prior use of the index drug