Development of the Centralized Interactive Phenomics Resource (CIPHER) Standard for Electronic Health Data-Based Phenomics Knowledgebase

The development of phenotypes using electronic health records is a resource intensive process. Therefore, the cataloging of phenotype algorithm metadata for reuse is critical to accelerate clinical research. The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development has developed a phenomics knowledgebase library, CIPHER (Centralized Interactive Phenomics Research), which improves upon existing phenomics library models to help advance innovation in clinical research by using the CIPHER phenotype collection standard. The CIPHER standard was iteratively developed with phenomics experts and has been used to capture over 5,000 phenotypes. We describe the development of the CIPHER standard for phenotype metadata collection, its current application to the largest healthcare system in the United States, and the future expansion of the CIPHER knowledgebase as a public resource for phenotyping.