How and when informative visit processes can bias inference when using electronic health records data for clinical research.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Electronic health records (EHR) data have become a central data source for clinical research. One concern for using EHR data is that the process through which individuals engage with the health system, and find themselves within EHR data, can be informative. We have termed this process informed presence. In this study we use simulation and real data to assess how the informed presence can impact inference.

Materials and methods

We first simulated a visit process where a series of biomarkers were observed informatively and uninformatively over time. We further compared inference derived from a randomized control trial (ie, uninformative visits) and EHR data (ie, potentially informative visits).

Results

We find that only when there is both a strong association

SUBMITTER: Goldstein BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6857502 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature