What is Real-World data?
When working with evidencebased medicine we stride towards using randomized controlled trials of high quality to answer our questions. Yet, following a careful selection based on inclusion/exclusion criteria ect. how comparable are the results actually with what is going on in the real world?
We do indeed need these careful planned trials in order to filter out all other noise that might eventually effect the result. However, supplementing these results with so-called real-world data might add another perspective to your work.
Real-world data is data that is derived from a heterogeneous patient-population found in real-world settings.
Sources of real-world data includes:
- Observational studies
- Social media
- Health care databases
- Patient registries
Real-world data can be used to assess outcomes that are not otherwise collected in the context of conventional RCTs. As such, it allows you to get an additional perspective on things, that might be useful in the assessment of a given intervention.
Papers on the subject can be found her and her
There is also a more extensive course on using real-world data from the GetReal website. Find it her
