OHDSI Estonia – National Node
Local Collaboration. European Impact.
OHDSI Estonia is a growing community of researchers, data scientists, and health informatics professionals passionate about OMOP CDM and its potential to transform health data research. Our strongest hub is at the University of Tartu, where the Health Informatics research group leads the national node and drives much of the community's momentum.
We are actively working to put OMOP on the map in Estonia — engaging with the broader research community, presenting at local events, and opening conversations with policymakers. The groundwork for a national OMOP dataset is being laid, and we are excited about what that could mean for the future of health data in Estonia.
On the European stage, OHDSI Estonia punches above its weight. We contribute as methods developers, embrace AI-driven approaches, and bring national-level OMOP datasets and biobank resources to the table — making us a recognised and valued part of the OHDSI Europe community.
Community Snapshot
31
members
6
Organisations
2
SMEs
8
Databases available in OMOP CDM
Objectives
- Embrace OHDSI’s mission, vision, and values
- Enhance communication within Estonia among national node members and externally with other OHDSI nodes and stakeholders, including the OHDSI European chapter.
- Coordinate and consolidate OHDSI/OMOP-related initiatives and tools within Estonia, such as mapping tables and coding lists.
- Advocate for and advance the utilization and proficiency of the OMOP common data model in Estonia.
Gallery
Focus areas
International projects & collaborations
- EHDEN Foundation – data partner
- OPTIMA – data partner
- DARWIN – data partner
- TeamPerMed – leading the data working group in the consortium
Notable achievements
- Compilation of EST-Health-30 dataset — a large-scale, population-representative dataset covering complete health records for 509,857 individuals, a random 30% sample of the Estonian population.
- Two full-length articles published in Estonia's leading medical journal — introducing the potential of OMOP and presenting the EST-Health-30 dataset along with practical guidance on how to use it.
- Successful collaboration with medical doctors and enthusiastic endorsements from them — expressed in front of large audiences — on what OMOP makes possible, signalling that the clinical community is genuinely taking notice.
- The OMOP community is expanding beyond academia into operational healthcare settings. Estonia's first hospital OMOP implementation is now underway, and a new law proposal in parliament aims to link key national health datasets — with OMOP as the analytical layer on top.
Other focus areas
- Continuous improvement of the national health data ETL pipeline, including terminology harmonisation and common concept mappings
- AI-powered information extraction from clinical notes
- Methodological research spanning OMOP dataset comparison, abstraction of medical facts and events, and transformer-based models for patient trajectory prediction.
- Disease-specific research across multiple areas, with a current focus on cardiology
How to join OHDSI Estonia?
Governance
- Lead Institution: University of Tartu
- Lead: Sulev Reisberg –
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Co-Lead: Raivo Kolde –
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Node operates as a small, informal community where governance is kept deliberately lightweight — anyone with a question, idea, or request simply reaches out to the lead or co-lead directly. Rather than organising dedicated all-member gatherings, the community stays connected organically through conferences, workshops, and shared events where members naturally cross paths.
Join the OHDSI Community and select the Europe chapter:
www.ohdsi.org/community/To join OHDSI Estonia, email:
Activities
Useful resources
- Our GitHub repository for Estonian mappings: https://github.com/HealthInformaticsUT/EstonianOMOPMappings
- Our software: https://health-informatics.cs.ut.ee/software/
- OMOP introduction in medical journal “Eesti Arst” (in Estonian): https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/EA/article/view/24470
Contributing organizations (selected)
The Estonia’s Node includes contributions from a wide range of stakeholders across the health data landscape. The selection below highlights active participants in Node activities, events, and working groups.
This is not an exhaustive list and will evolve as the community grows.
Connect to the Estonian Node and follow its activities.