Building an active medical product safety surveillance system in Taiwan: Adaptation of the U.S. Sentinel System common data model structure to the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan

Purpose: Using real-world data to support regulatory decision has become a global movement. However, a robust platform for active surveillance of medical product safety has not been established in Taiwan. Methods: Following the common data model structure of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Sentinel System, we built the Taiwan Sentinel Data Model (TSDM) using the National Health Insurance Research Database with longitudinal claims data from 23 million individuals, linked death and cause of death data from a national registry, and linked electronic health record data from a delivery system. We examined the conversion of the TSDM using the Sentinel Data Quality Review and Characterization Programs in a sample of sex- and age-stratified cohort of 3 million individuals. Results: The TSDM fulfilled the requirements of data quality assurance. Only about 6% of sex and 0.0007% of birth year were missing, and <0.001% of date data had illogical values. Conclusions: The TSDM-converted database could be a valuable data resource for domestic pharmacovigilance analysis in Taiwan and cross-country evaluation.