Application of User-Defined Rules for Patient Follow-up in a Clinical Database Management System

摘要

The quality of results obtained from clinical trials is dependent on the quality of the data collection procedures employed. The concept of follow-up schedules with time windows provides clinicians with a useful tool for improving the process of data collection. A medical information system is described which utilizes user-definable patient follow-up information to structure clinical trials data collection. This system performs ongoing checks for completeness, and is capable of reporting on missing data in both a retrospective and a prospective manner.