Electronic healthcare databases in Europe: descriptive analysis of characteristics and potential for use in medicines regulation.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Electronic healthcare databases (EHDs) are useful tools for drug development and safety evaluation but their heterogeneity of structure, validity and access across Europe complicates the conduct of multidatabase studies. In this paper, we provide insight into available EHDs to support regulatory decisions on medicines.

Methods

EHDs were identified from publicly available information from the European Network of Centres for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacovigilance resources database, textbooks and web-based searches. Databases were selected using criteria related to accessibility, longitudinal dimension, recording of exposure and outcomes, and generalisability. Extracted information was verified with the database owners.

Results

A total of 34 EHDs were sele

SUBMITTER: Pacurariu A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6129090 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature