Fig 1.
The illustrated life cycle is a series of necessary or recommended steps that produce RWD usable for analysis, from raw data generated by clinical encounters or operational workflows.
Insights gained from data use can be returned to the life cycle, enriching future generation of clinical data. RWD, real-world data.
Table 1.
The best practices identified in this table are areas where there is heterogeneity in best practice or where there are opportunities for innovation in the next 5 to 10 years.
They have been linked to the RWD life cycle stages identified in Fig 1.
Table 2.
We summarize key challenges attached to the best practices identified in this paper, which must be addressed to realize full value from a RWD life cycle.
Fig 2.
An example data platform incorporating multiple best practices discussed in this article including natural language processing, generation of data warehouses and data marts, and ADM.
ADM, augmented data management; COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019; EHR, electronic health record.