Abstract
Observational databases by providing data on patient outcomes from diverse therapies and by severity of illness offer the potential for: ‘living textbooks’, quality care assessment, risk-stratification and subgrouping, clinical predictions, and health care policy modeling. Such databases are expanding exponentially primarily in response to the needs of cost-containment and quality assurance forcing increasingly sophisticated data collection and analytic techniques.
The limitations of observational databases reside primarily in the quality, consistency and comparability of data collected from multiple sources; the multifactorial nature of disease processes in individual patients and patient subgroups making statistically valid comparisons difficult; a perceived potentially negative impact on clinical practice; and, the problems that health care professionals encounter in conscientiously collecting the data. There are solutions to all of these limitations. The potential rewards from observational databases justify the efforts that will be required to make them feasible, reliable, and acceptable to the profession and health care planners alike.
Clinical and policy decisions need to be based on conclusions drawn from real life data. Observational databases can be designed to collect and analyze such data to give results comparable with and, in some cases, of greater utility and relevance than those derived from classical ‘scientific’ research projects as well as the randomized, controlled clinical trial. This paper provides an overview of the observational database, its beginnings, its problems, some solutions to the problems and projected utilities.
Keywords
- Technology Utilization
- Observational Database
- Alternative Management Strategy
- Health Care Planner
- Triple Vessel Coronary Artery Disease
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Supported in part by the Herman C. Krannert Fund; by Grants HL 06308 and HL 07182 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; and the American Heart Association, Indiana Affiliate, Inc.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Knoebel, S.B. (1991). Observational databases: a clinical perspective. In: Meester, G.T., Pinciroli, F. (eds) Databases for Cardiology. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 115. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3720-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3720-1_2
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