Program Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU)

The main focus of PERU is to provide research support, including study design, implementation, data storage, and data analysis, for the School of Pharmacy.  Faculty and staff at PERU provide expertise in epidemiology, qualitative analyses, and survey design.

Medical Record Data Repository

The UPMC has a medical record data repository that houses clinical and financial information for the health system.   There are over 25 million clinical reports and over 100 million financial transactions from both inpatient and outpatient visits.   The repository receives all transcribed reports including history and physicals, discharge summaries, and operation notes as well as information from pharmacy, laboratory, microbiology, pathology, and radiology databases.  Every word in every report is indexed which allows for free-text searching of words or phrases within a specific report. All records obtained on a single patient at any given time are linked via a unique patient identifier.  Diseases and procedures are coded in each patient's medical record abstract using ICD-9-CM terminology.  Drugs and biologics dispensed through the pharmacy are coded individually as well as by class using the American Hospital Formulary Service system.  Complex multiple drug profiles can be reconstructed and temporally related to clinical events.  The data repository can be used to capture treatment and cost patterns for various disease states.  Data utilized for research purposes is de-identified to meet HIPAA guidelines, and all research is approved by the University's Institutional Review Board.