Comparison of electronic health record system functionalities to support the patient recruitment process in clinical trials.

Objectives: Reusing data from electronic health records for clinical and translational research and especially for patient recruitment has been tackled in a broader manner since about a decade. Most projects found in the literature however focus on standalone systems and proprietary implementations at one particular institution often for only one singular trial and no generic evaluation of EHR systems for their applicability to support the patient recruitment process does yet exist. Thus we sought to assess whether the current generation of EHR systems in Germany provides modules/tools, which can readily be applied for IT-supported patient recruitment scenarios.

Design and multicentric implementation of a generic software architecture for patient recruitment systems re-using existing HIS tools and routine patient data.

Objective: (1) To define features and data items of a Patient Recruitment System (PRS); (2) to design a generic software architecture of such a system covering the requirements; (3) to identify implementation options available within different Hospital Information System (HIS) environments; (4) to implement five PRS following the architecture and utilizing the implementation options as proof of concept.

Methods: Existing PRS were reviewed and interviews with users and developers conducted. All reported PRS features were collected and prioritized according to their published success and user's request.

Evaluation of data completeness in the electronic health record for the purpose of patient recruitment into clinical trials: a retrospective analysis of element presence.

Background: Computerized clinical trial recruitment support is one promising field for the application of routine care data for clinical research. The primary task here is to compare the eligibility criteria defined in trial protocols with patient data contained in the electronic health record (EHR). To avoid the implementation of different patient definitions in multi-site trials, all participating research sites should use similar patient data from the EHR.