In order to facilitate OMOP research, a Common Data Model and Vocabulary were introduced to systematically apply methods to a disparate set of databases in order to produce meaningfully comparable results across sources. The Standard Vocabulary contains all of the code sets, terminologies, vocabularies, nomenclatures, lexicons, thesauri, ontologies, taxonomies, classifications, abstractions, and other such data that are required for (1) creating the transformed (i.e., standardized) data from the raw data sets, (2) searching and querying the transformed data, and browsing and navigating the hierarchies of classes and abstractions inherent in the transformed data, and (3) interpreting the meanings of the data.

In order to allow researchers to enable the vocabulary and the CDM databases for classes of concepts (i.e., classifications) without the need to know the individual concepts that those classes subsume, OMOP developed a standardized set of queries. For example, finding all drugs within the specific therapeutic class “antihypertensive”, the keyword needs be entered in the query and then returns all drugs that fall in that class. Similarly, a query of CDM databases for a particular medical condition will retrieve all individual diagnoses that comprise that medical condition.

Download the description and explanation of a set of general queries, queries for drugs, conditions, procedures and observations. Prior to using these queries, you should download the Vocabulary tables and it is recommended that you read the Vocabulary Specifications document to understand the tables, fields, and references contained therein.