A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Reuse of Routinely Obtained Laboratory Data in Research
Overmars, L Malin; Niemantsverdriet, Michael S A; Groenhof, T Katrien J; De Groot, Mark C H; Hulsbergen-Veelken, Cornelia A R; Van Solinge, Wouter W; Musson, Ruben E A; Ten Berg, Maarten J; Hoefer, Imo E; Haitjema, Saskia
(2022) Journal of Medical Internet Research, volume 24, issue 11
(Article)
Abstract
Electronic health records (EHRs) contain valuable data for reuse in science, quality evaluations, and clinical decision support. Because routinely obtained laboratory data are abundantly present, often numeric, generated by certified laboratories, and stored in a structured way, one may assume that they are immediately fit for (re)use in research. However,
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behind each test result lies an extensive context of choices and considerations, made by both humans and machines, that introduces hidden patterns in the data. If they are unaware, researchers reusing routine laboratory data may eventually draw incorrect conclusions. In this paper, after discussing health care system characteristics on both the macro and micro level, we introduce the reader to hidden aspects of generating structured routine laboratory data in 4 steps (ordering, preanalysis, analysis, and postanalysis) and explain how each of these steps may interfere with the reuse of routine laboratory data. As researchers reusing these data, we underline the importance of domain knowledge of the health care professional, laboratory specialist, data manager, and patient to turn routine laboratory data into meaningful data sets to help obtain relevant insights that create value for clinical care.
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Keywords: Decision Support Systems, Clinical, Delivery of Health Care, Electronic Health Records, Humans, Laboratories, Research Personnel, data, decision, preprocessing, clinical care, decision support, electronic health records, analysis, applied data science, research, clinical, laboratory, patient, laboratory data, value, Health Informatics, Journal Article
ISSN: 1438-8871
Publisher: Journal of medical Internet Research
Note: Funding Information: MSAN is supported by a PhD fellowship from SkylineDx, Rotterdam. SH is supported by an Abbott Diagnostics Fellowship. All others have no competing financial interests to declare. Publisher Copyright: © L Malin Overmars, Michael S A Niemantsverdriet, T Katrien J Groenhof, Mark C H De Groot, Cornelia A R Hulsbergen-Veelken, Wouter W Van Solinge, Ruben E A Musson, Maarten J Ten Berg, Imo E Hoefer, Saskia Haitjema. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 18.11.2022. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
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