The Automatic Clinical Trial: Leveraging the Electronic Medical Record in Multisite Cancer Clinical Trials

Submission of data into clinical trial electronic data capture (EDC) systems currently requires redundant entry of data that already exist in the electronic medical record (EMR). Being able to automatically transfer data from the EMR to the EDC system would save many hours of arduous effort, especially for multisite data-intensive oncology trials. Standardization of the way in which data are stored in and retrieved from the EMR and techniques for mining data from the unstructured narrative will provide opportunities for transferring data from the EMR to the EDC system. As different EMRs proliferate, other technology in the form of data mining or middle-tier applications is certain to provide assistance in this effort.