Post-Marketing Surveillance of Hematologic Medications

Detecting rare events in relatively small collections of data, such as complications of new medications in elderly or minority cohorts, is a difficult problem to address. One domain that can potentially alleviate this problem and thus save lives is post-marketing surveillance of new medications. In this DBP, we will study adverse events associated with four different oral hematologic medications (prasugrel, clopidogrel, warfarin, and dabigatran). The most common bleeding complications will be monitored as well as rare but potentially life-threatening events, including hemorrhagic stroke and thrombolytic thrombocytopenic purpura. This DBP will be a collaborative effort between three institutions: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University, and UCSD. Data will be obtained from medical records via research data warehouses and will be analyzed at each institution using several statistical process control and machine learning algorithms.