Summary
Objectives: To identify common methodological challenges and review relevant initiatives related
to the re-use of patient data collected in routine clinical care, as well as to analyze
the economic benefits derived from the secondary use of this data. Through the use
of several examples, this article aims to provide a glimpse into the different areas
of application, namely clinical research, genomic research, study of environmental
factors, and population and health services research. This paper describes some of
the informatics methods and Big Data resources developed in this context, such as
electronic phenotyping, clinical research networks, biorepositories, screening data
banks, and wide association studies. Lastly, some of the potential limitations of
these approaches are discussed, focusing on confounding factors and data quality.
Methods: A series of literature searches in main bibliographic databases have been conducted
in order to assess the extent to which existing patient data has been repurposed for
research. This contribution from the IMIA working group on “Data mining and Big Data
analytics” focuses on the literature published during the last two years, covering
the timeframe since the working group’s last survey.
Results and Conclusions: Although most of the examples of secondary use of patient data lie in the arena of
clinical and health services research, we have started to witness other important
applications, particularly in the area of genomic research and the study of health
effects of environmental factors. Further research is needed to characterize the economic
impact of secondary use across the broad spectrum of translational research.
Keywords
Electronic health record - medical informatics - data mining - clinical study - translational
medical research
