ORIGINAL REPORT

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Mini-Sentinel program:status and direction

Richard Platt1*, Ryan M. Carnahan2, Jeffrey S. Brown1, Elizabeth Chrischilles2, Lesley H. Curtis3,Sean Hennessy4, Jennifer C. Nelson5, Judith A. Racoosin6, Melissa Robb6, Sebastian Schneeweiss7,Sengwee Toh1 and Mark G. Weiner8

1Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA2Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA3Duke Clinical Research Institute and Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA4Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA5Biostatistics Unit, Group Health Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA6Office of Medical Policy, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, USA7Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham andWomen’s Hospital andHarvardMedical School, Boston, MA, USA8Division of General InternalMedicine, Department ofMedicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

ABSTRACTThe Mini-Sentinel is a pilot program that is developing methods, tools, resources, policies, and procedures to facilitate the use of routinelycollected electronic healthcare data to perform active surveillance of the safety of marketed medical products, including drugs, biologics, andmedical devices. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated the program in 2009 as part of its Sentinel Initiative, in response toa Congressional mandate in the FDA Amendments Act of 2007.

After two years, Mini-Sentinel includes 31 academic and private organizations. It has developed policies, procedures, and technical spe-cifications for developing and operating a secure distributed data system comprised of separate data sets that conform to a common datamodel covering enrollment, demographics, encounters, diagnoses, procedures, and ambulatory dispensing of prescription drugs. The distrib-uted data sets currently include administrative and claims data from 2000 to 2011 for over 300 million person-years, 2.4 billion encounters,38 million inpatient hospitalizations, and 2.9 billion dispensings. Selected laboratory results and vital signs data recorded after 2005 are alsoavailable. There is an active data quality assessment and characterization program, and eligibility for medical care and pharmacy benefits isknown. Systematic reviews of the literature have assessed the ability of administrative data to identify health outcomes of interest, and pro-cedures have been developed and tested to obtain, abstract, and adjudicate full-text medical records to validate coded diagnoses. Mini-Sentinelhas also created a taxonomy of study designs and analytical approaches for many commonly occurring situations, and it is developing newstatistical and epidemiologic methods to address certain gaps in analytic capabilities.

Assessments are performed by distributing computer programs that are executed locally by each data partner. The system is in active useby FDA, with the majority of assessments performed using customizable, reusable queries (programs). Prospective and retrospective assess-ments that use customized protocols are conducted as well. To date, several hundred unique programs have been distributed and executed.

Current activities include active surveillance of several drugs and vaccines, expansion of the population, enhancement of the common datamodel to include additional types of data from electronic health records and registries, development of new methodologic capabilities, andassessment of methods to identify and validate additional health outcomes of interest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

key words—Mini-Sentinel; FDA; U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Sentinel Initiative; FDA Amendments Act of 2007

INTRODUCTION

Mini-Sentinel is a collaboration between the U.S.Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 31 academic

and private organizations, and hundreds of scientiststo develop the capability to use routinely collectedelectronic healthcare data to perform active surveil-lance of the safety of marketed medical products,including drugs, biologics, and medical devices. FDAinitiated the program in 2009 as part of its Sentinel Ini-tiative. The Initiative is a response to a Congressional

*Correspondence to: R. Platt, Department of Population Medicine, HarvardMedical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA.E-mail: Richard_Platt@harvard.edu

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety 2012; 21(S1): 1–8Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pds.2343

mandate in the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 to per-form active surveillance of the safety of approved drugsthrough use of routinely collected electronic health in-formation resulting from the care of at least 100 millionpeople.1,2 The Mini-Sentinel is a pilot program chargedwith developing the framework, data resources, analyticcapabilities, policies, and procedures to satisfy thismandate. In this article, we provide an overview ofthe Mini-Sentinel’s status and direction. Additionalinformation is available in a series of articles describingspecific activities3 and on the Mini-Sentinel website,www.mini-sentinel.org.

VISION AND MISSION

The FDA’s vision is creation of a system that can useroutinely collected electronic health information tosupport active surveillance of approved medical pro-ducts, including drugs, biologics, and medical devices,in near real time.4 Such a system will augment, but notreplace, other means of surveillance, including exami-nation of spontaneously reported adverse events.Achieving this vision requires development of a meth-odologic framework to guide safety surveillanceassessments, and creation of the ability to rapidly de-fine cohorts of individuals exposed to medical pro-ducts of interest, to capture specific health outcomes,and to perform a core set of assessments using custo-mizable computer programs. FDA is committed toachieving this vision through the use of distributeddata methods, that is, without creating a centralizeddata repository.Mini-Sentinel’s mission is to create a “laboratory”

that develops and evaluates policies and procedures,organizational structures, and scientific methods thatmight later be used in a fully operational SentinelSystem.5 Mini-Sentinel activities will thus offer theFDA the opportunity to evaluate safety issues in exist-ing automated health care data systems and to learnmore about barriers and challenges to real-time activesurveillance using electronic healthcare data.The initial focus of Mini-Sentinel is on signal refine-

ment, which is the assessment of predefined exposure-outcome pairs to determine whether there is evidenceof association. As shown in Figure 1, signal refinementis the second of three steps that begin with signal gen-eration. The exposure-outcome pairs assessed duringsignal refinement may be identified through signalgeneration activities using automated data, from theproduct’s clinical development program, through priorknowledge about the product in question or similarproducts, via spontaneously reported adverse events,or from other sources. Mini-Sentinel is also working

on signal generation methods, although this is not amajor focus at present.Mini-Sentinel’s signal refinement activities will or-

dinarily comprise either rapid one-time assessment ofthe accumulated experience of a product, or prospectiverepeated (sequential) monitoring of data as it accumu-lates. In either case, the emphasis of signal refinementis on speed and the use, as much as possible, of standard-ized methodologic approaches and tools. Signal eval-uation, the third step in active surveillance, continuesthe work of signal refinement, focusing on assessingwhether an association is likely to be causal, and addres-sing questions such as dose-response, duration-response,and inter-individual variability in risk. There is someoverlap between the activities of signal refinement andsignal evaluation, with the latter typically dependingmore heavily on customized, in-depth, study-specificprotocols. Signal evaluation is not currently a focus ofthe Mini-Sentinel’s activities.Another Mini-Sentinel activity is rapid assessment of

the impact of FDA’s regulatory activities. The goal ofsuch assessment is to evaluate the impact of new regula-tion, such as a new boxed warning, on both prescribingand health outcomes.Mini-Sentinel’s current activities thus include these

domains: (i) developing a consortium of data partnersand other content experts, (ii) developing policiesand procedures, (iii) creating a distributed data systemwith access to electronic healthcare data and full-textmedical records, (iv) developing secure communica-tions capabilities, (v) evaluating extant methods insafety science and developing new epidemiologicaland statistical methods as needed, (vi) evaluatingFDA-identified medical product-adverse event pairsof concern, and (vii) assessing the impact of selectedFDA regulatory actions.

GOVERNANCE

Mini-Sentinel has developed policies to govern itswork.6 A foundational policy classifies the work ofthe Mini-Sentinel as public health practice, not re-search, from the perspective of both the Common Rulethat governs research involving human subjects and theHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act(HIPAA). This classification is the result of determina-tions by the Department of Health and Human Ser-vices’ Office for Human Research Protections, withregard to interpretation of the Common Rule, and byFDA, with regard to HIPAA. As a matter of policy,Mini-Sentinel minimizes the transfer of protected healthinformation and proprietary data. The use of a distrib-uted data system plays a central role in implementation

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of this policy. An independent panel of experts inpatient privacy assessed the Mini-Sentinel’s policiesregarding the use of healthcare information.7

Additional policies govern the data partners’ partic-ipation.8 Key provisions include their status as fullpartners in the development and implementation ofscientific protocols and in interpretation of results,their ability to choose whether or not they participatein specific activities, and their right to use for otherpurposes their own data that they have transformedinto the Mini-Sentinel’s common data model format.Mini-Sentinel policies also commit FDA and theinvestigators to making publicly available the pro-gram’s policies, tools, methods, protocols, computerprograms, and scientific findings. They also addressthe handling of non-public and confidential informa-tion, and conflict of interest.

THE MINI-SENTINEL DISTRIBUTED DATASYSTEM

The Mini-Sentinel’s principal data resource is a dis-tributed data system comprised of information heldby each data partner. Each data partner retains physicaland operational control over its own data. This organi-zational structure has several advantages. It satisfiesFDA’s requirement that the Mini-Sentinel not estab-lish a centralized data repository, which might raisepublic concern about potential misuse of confidentialmedical data. The distributed design avoids the needto create, secure, maintain, and manage access to acomplex central data warehouse. It also avoids datapartners’ concerns about sharing both individuals’confidential information and their own proprietarydata. Additionally, it ensures that local content expertsmaintain a close relationship with the data. This

relationship is important because data partners havethe best understanding of their data and its uses; validuse and interpretation of findings requires input fromthe data partners. This knowledge has been critical tounderstanding appropriate use and interpretation ofdata, even after its transformation into a common for-mat. Differences in the delivery of care and in codingpractices between health plans, and within health plansover time, are typically undocumented and difficult toinfer based on data inspection alone. This informationis typically only available to individuals with detailedknowledge of a health plan’s or practice’s operations.The distributed data system requires each data part-

ner to transform its data to a common data modelbased on a standard format according to pre-specifieddefinitions. This transformation in advance of useconfers two major operational advantages. It allowsextensive quality assurance evaluation to assess com-pleteness of the data and identification and remedia-tion of many data quality problems before the dataare used to address medical product safety questions.The common data model also allows assessments tobe performed through the use of computer programsthat are distributed and then executed without site-specific modification. The use of distributed programsmakes highly efficient use of programmer effort andeliminates the potential for protocols to be implemen-ted differently in different systems.The common data model is comprised of separate

tables, each of which contains a specific type of data.This structure is intended to allow the model to evolveto accommodate FDA’s needs and the availability ofadditional data types.9 The model currently focuseson administrative and claims data. The data areas itencompasses include enrollment, demographics, out-patient pharmacy dispensing, utilization (encounters,

Figure 1. Stages of postmarket active medical product safety surveillance. The Mini-Sentinel’s principal focus is on signal refinement

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 2012; 21(S1): 1–8DOI: 10.1002/pds

diagnoses, procedures), and mortality (death and causeof death). The model also incorporates clinical dataincluding vital signs, smoking status, and results often priority laboratory tests recorded since 2005.As of July 2011, the distributed dataset contained

quality-checked data held by 17 partner organizations.The data covered nearly 100 million individuals (indi-viduals who belonged to more than one participatinghealth plan during the past several years are countedin each plan) for whom there is well-defined eligibleperson-time during which medically attended eventsare known. There were over 300 million person-yearsof observation time, 2.4 billion unique encounters in-cluding 38 million acute inpatient stays, and 2.9 billiondispensing of prescriptions. The dataset is refreshedperiodically. The development, content, and use ofthe distributed dataset are described in more detail byCurtis et al.10 Special considerations for assessmentof the safety of vaccines, such as linkage to state im-munization registries, are described separately.11 TheMini-Sentinel’s vaccine-related activities are collec-tively named the Post-licensure Rapid Immunization

Safety Monitoring (PRISM) system. PRISM was initi-ated as a separate single purpose program to evaluatethe safety of the H1N1 influenza vaccine; it was thenincorporated into the Mini-Sentinel to continue sur-veillance of influenza and other vaccines.Data queries (programs) are distributed and returned

via a secure portal, as shown in Figure 2. Mini-Sentineluses three types of queries. It uses a menu-driven querygenerator for simple questions, such as determining thenumber of exposures to specific products or the numberand age/sex distribution of individuals with a diagnosisor procedure of interest.12 These queries run againstpre-compiled summary tables, thus avoiding the com-putational overhead involved in analyzing the full dis-tributed dataset. The data partners can also be confidentthat the queries do not request sensitive information asthe tables do not contain personally identifiableinformation.For more complex types of recurring queries, Mini-

Sentinel uses customizable, reusable (modular) pro-grams.9 These programs execute in data partners’ fulldistributed datasets. An example is a program that

Figure 2. Querying the Mini-Sentinel distributed database. Each query involves five steps: 1) A query (program) is created and then posted by an authorizeduser on the secure portal. 2) Data partners are notified and retrieve the query. 3) Data partners review the query and execute it against their local data. 4) Datapartners review the results, which are typically counts, e.g., number of exposed individuals, amount of exposed person-time, number of individuals with out-comes of interest. 5) Data partners submit their results using the secure portal. 6) The results are reviewed and then combined with other data partners’ results

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identifies cohorts of new users of specific products,determines the number of dispensings, the amount ofexposed person-time, and the number of outcomes ofinterest observed during exposed time. These reusableprograms allow users to specify parameters such as in-clusion and exclusion criteria, and the new user andoutcome definitions. These programs carry severaloperational advantages, including the fact that the pro-grams are extensively vetted to assure that they per-form the desired assessments, and that they executeefficiently in the data partners’ diverse computingenvironments. The program logic is pre-approved bythe data partners so the output generated requires min-imal evaluation by data partners. These programs pro-duce counts, and in some cases, rates, for specifiedage, sex, and calendar time strata, but do not currentlyadjust for confounding factors. The third type of queryinvolves custom programs that perform assessmentsbeyond the scope of existing modular programs. Theseare typically used to support prospective surveillanceprotocols, which may have unique needs. Mini-Sentinelattempts to capture the novel programming performedfor these studies and make it available through a pro-gram library or by incorporating it into a new modularprogram.

METHODS DEVELOPMENT

Mini-Sentinel investigators have developed a taxon-omy of study designs to guide the development of ac-tive surveillance protocols and also of new modularprograms.13 This taxonomy considers various combi-nations of exposure attributes (e.g, acute, chronic),outcome attributes (e.g., rare, common), and character-istics of the exposure-outcome relationship, with theintent of expediting the choice of study design aspectsfor a wide range of exposures and outcomes. The tax-onomy continues to evolve to include considerationsof analytic strategy and conditions specific to assess-ment of adverse reactions to vaccines.Substantial effort has also been devoted to clarifying

the applicability of semi-automated methods for con-trol of confounding in cohort designs, such as thehigh-dimensional propensity score,14 and to provid-ing guidance regarding the strengths, limitations, andpracticability of case-only methods.15 Mini-Sentinelinvestigators also tested a multivariable adjusted self-controlled case series and conducted statistical simula-tion studies on aspects of semi-automated covariateidentification and selection strategies.16,17

Because a substantial portion of the Mini-Sentinelportfolio will involve prospective repeated (sequential)assessment of accumulating data for specific

exposures and outcomes, Mini-Sentinel investigatorshave begun to explore the challenges associated withapplying sequential designs in observational safetysurveillance settings.18 To date, sequential testingmethods have primarily been used in randomized clin-ical trials. Although their application in observationalcontexts like Mini-Sentinel is promising, severalissues that are generally not of concern (or are of muchsmaller magnitude) in trials complicate matters. Theseinclude (i) lack of experimental control, which canyield confounding, unpredictable new user accrualrates and composition over time, missing data, and mis-classification, (ii) heterogeneous sites contributing datain a distributed environment that prevents individual-level data pooling and thus constrains analytic options,and (iii) the safety outcomes typically evaluated can berare, which introduces instability andmay require smallsample testing strategies. In addition, the scientific andregulatory aims for postmarket safety, which inherentlyimpact key sequential design decisions such as the fre-quency of interim testing, are different than in premar-ket trials and require additional consideration.Recognizing the need for better ability to choose

between different approaches to sequential assessmentsin observational safety surveillance settings, Cook andcolleagues performed simulations to compare the per-formance of four methods, which each use a differentconfounder adjustment strategy: the Lan-Demets groupsequential error spending approach, a group sequentiallikelihood ratio test, the conditional sequential samplingprocedure, and a group sequential generalized estimat-ing equations approach.19 The simulation evaluatedtype 1 error rate, power, and time-to-signal detection,under varying assumptions about outcome prevalence,exposure, and confounder complexity.

USING AND INTERPRETING THE DATA

Mini-Sentinel investigators have devoted considerableeffort to understanding the state of knowledge in use ofadministrative data to identify the health outcomes ofgreatest interest as endpoints for safety assessmentsof medical products, and the validity of currentmethods to identify outcomes. In collaboration withFDA, investigators identified the 20 highest priorityoutcomes among a candidate list of 140 outcomes forwhich there had been no recent review. Investigatorsthen performed systematic reviews of these 20 condi-tions, drawing on protocols that had been developedby the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership.20

The methods for conducting these reviews have beensummarized by Carnahan and Moores, along withlessons learned about the strengths and limitations of

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 2012; 21(S1): 1–8DOI: 10.1002/pds

the review process.21 A high-level classification of thefindings of these reviews is provided in Table 1. Carna-han and Moores also identified the gaps in our knowl-edge of the usefulness of administrative data for identi-fying these outcomes and offered suggestions foradditional research in this area.22

Our expectation is that instances of potential out-comes identified through use of administrative datawill usually require review and adjudication of full-text medical records in situations that require the pre-dictive value of designation as a case to be very high.Confirmation might be needed if signal refinement dis-covers evidence of excess risk. Cutrona and colleaguesdescribe the process Mini-Sentinel developed to iden-tify cases of acute myocardial infarction using distrib-uted programs, to have data partners obtain the

relevant portions of full-text inpatient medical records,and provide either redacted records or abstracted infor-mation to an expert panel for adjudication.23 Notably,it was possible to obtain redacted information from93% (143/153) of requested full-text records.

ASSESSMENT OF THE SAFETY OF MEDICALPRODUCTS

The Mini-Sentinel distributed dataset became usablefor distributed queries in early 2011. To date, the datapartners have executed several hundred distributedprograms in response to FDA queries. Examples ofmodular program queries included assessment of theoccurrence of acute myocardial infarction or strokeamong new users of drugs used to treat Parkinson’sdisease, celiac disease among recipients of angiotensinreceptor blockers, and cardiac outcomes among indi-viduals who were dispensed prescription drugs forsmoking cessation.One-time protocol-based assessments include initia-

tion of assessments of intussusception after two rotavi-rus vaccines, and venous thromboembolism followinghuman papilloma virus vaccine.11 A prospective se-quential evaluation of the occurrence of acute myocar-dial infarction among users of different antidiabeticdrugs is also in progress.24

NEXT STEPS

Near-term objectives include expanding the numberand type of assessments, increasing the size and diver-sity of the covered population, including data fromambulatory and inpatient electronic health recordsand registries, and broadening the range of medicalproducts and outcomes under observation. Additionaldata from two large national health plans are expectedto become available within the next year, substantiallyincreasing the size of the population. Expansion ofavailable laboratory results and development of modu-lar programs that incorporate height, weight, bloodpressure, smoking status, and outpatient laboratory testresults in conjunction with drug exposures and clinicaldiagnoses are planned. Algorithms will be developedto identify populations of special interest, such aspregnant women and patients with renal dysfunction.The availability of information about exposures toblood products will be explored.Ongoing and planned methodologic studies include

evaluation of inverse probability weighting to adjustfor confounding within a sequential monitoring frame-work, evaluation of methods for anonymous linkage ofindividuals who are represented in more than one data

Table 1. Utility of administrative data to identify health outcomes ofinterest

Good utility* Moderateutility†

Little utility{

Cerebrovascularaccident andtransient ischemicattacks25

Atrialfibrillation26

Anaphylaxis27

Heart failure28Ventriculararrhythmia29

Hypersensitivity reactions otherthan anaphylaxis30

Venousthromboembolism31

Seizures,convulsions, orepilepsy32

Erythema multiforme and otherserious skin reactions33

Angioedema27

Depression34Acute respiratory failure35

Revision of totalhip arthroplasty36 Pancreatitis37

Pulmonary fibrosis andinterstitial lung disease38

Infection related to bloodproducts, tissue grafts, or organtransplantation39

Transfusion-associated sepsis40

Transfusion reaction caused byABO incompatibility41

Suicide – attempted orcompleted42

Revision of knee arthroplasty36

Lymphoma43

*Positive Predictive Values consistently >70% to identify acute or incidentevents across most of multiple studies examining relatively generalizablestudy populations.

†Positive Predictive Values 50–70%, inconsistent findings, based on fewstudies, limited information on identifying acute or incident events, sensi-tivity of algorithms questionable, or limited generalizability based onstudy populations.

{Positive Predictive Values <50%, very limited or dated information onvalidity of algorithms compared to medical record review, or other sub-stantial limitations in algorithm performance or evidence.

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source, methods for distributed multivariable-adjustedanalysis, assessing the roles of propensity score anddisease risk score methods in monitoring the safetyof new medical products, additional simulation capa-bilities, and work on signal generation.Systematic reviews of the validity of coded diagnoses

for additional health outcomes of interest that areespecially relevant to evaluation of vaccine safety willbe performed. Validation studies that involve adjudica-tion of full-text medical records will be performed forsevere acute liver injury, venous thromboembolism,intussusception, and anaphylaxis.Surveillance activities will include new prospective

and retrospective assessments with customized proto-cols, as well as assessment of the impact of regulatoryaction.

LONGER TERM

Developing a robust system for active surveillance ofmedical product safety is a long-term, complex initia-tive. It will be necessary to implement it in stages as sci-entific methods and data infrastructure mature. Ongoingeffort will be required to achieve an appropriate balancebetween the need for timeliness in assessing the safetyof medical products and avoiding misleading conclu-sions. It will also be necessary to ensure privacy and se-curity within the distributed system and to continue toaddress the concerns of stakeholders including patientsand the public. Finally, it will be important to considerways in which the resources and methods that theMini-Sentinel develops can serve as a national resourceto support other secondary uses of electronic healthdata, including clinical effectiveness and quality of care.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors have declared that there is no conflict ofinterest.

KEY POINTS• Mini-Sentinel has created a distributed data net-work, analytic methods, and policies to enable useof routinely collected electronic health informationto assess the safety of marketed medical products

• The network is currently in routine use by FDA• Mini-Sentinel focuses on rapid assessment of pastexperience, prospective assessment of accumulat-ing data, and assessment of changes in utilizationand health outcomes after regulatory action

• This network has the potential to address nationalneeds beyond safety of medical products.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Mini-Sentinel is funded by the Food and Drug Admin-istration through Department of Health and HumanServices Contract Number HHSF223200910006I.

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 2012; 21(S1): 1–8DOI: 10.1002/pds