Record collection: The benefits of EMR in drug development
Christian Martin, Medisoft, outlines how advanced Electronic Medical Records (EMR) can help in the development and monitoring of ground-breaking drugs.
With an ageing population millions more people will suffer from degenerative eye conditions, particularly age-related macular degeneration. Drugs such as vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors (anti-VEGF) have transformed patient outcomes in recent years, and new molecules to treat a wide range of ophthalmic conditions will be increasingly important in the battle against sight loss. Efficient systematic recording of medication use and outcomes is now becoming more commonplace. As well as improving patient care and safety, these data enable research and development teams to better understand eye diseases and the real-world use and effectiveness of ophthalmic medications.
It is estimated that 196 million people worldwide will suffer from age-related macular degeneration by 2020 and this will rise to 288 million by 2040, according to a study in the Lancet Global Health. Increasing disease prevalence and an ageing population mean that many more people are predicted to suffer from a variety eye conditions such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy in the coming years.
Such an escalation in patients diagnosed with degenerative eye conditions is a concern for many ophthalmology departments, with the clinical workload expected to surge rapidly. However, it also presents a unique opportunity for pharmaceutical companies aiming to enhance treatment for previously untreatable conditions such as the ‘dry’ form of age-related macular degeneration.
More patients inevitably means more clinical appointments, but thanks to advanced EMR systems which are increasingly coming to the fore, accurate data on disease progression, treatment and outcome is much more readily available. As a result, the case for efficient electronic data collection is strengthening – with pharmaceutical companies willing to invest in such records, both to support eye departments in treating the right patients in the most appropriate way, and to learn from pooled databases of huge populations of patients with a particular condition or treatment.
Traditionally, pharmaceutical companies would be reliant on expensive clinical trials or post-marketing surveillance studies to gain insights into the need for and use of medications. The information compiled using EMR systems provides a short-cut, allowing such research to be conducted in a fraction of the time and at a much lower cost.
Wide-ranging benefits
Forward-thinking pharmaceutical companies are becoming increasingly reliant on the data gathered by specialised EMR systems, using it to understand the natural history of potentially treatable conditions, to support marketing initiatives, and to compare real-world treatment patterns and effectiveness with the results of clinical trials.
Data collection in ophthalmology has now reached the required level of sophistication that clinical teams should no longer depend on data that is distributed across paper notes and a range of diagnostic and imaging devices. EMR records can be drilled down to give information not only on how effective a treatment has been, but also variations across specific cohorts of patients, such as those with complicating comorbidities.
The accessibility of pooled data on hundreds of thousands of patients is an important breakthrough for pharmaceutical research teams which have always faced the challenge of accessing information which is consistent, reliable and well linked. EMR systems are now automatically collecting that data at all stages of the value chain, from trials to real-world use after regulatory approval.
By embracing the latest EMR innovations and collaborating with clinicians and hospitals that make best use of electronic records, pharmaceutical companies can better understand many aspects of their market and product development. This could lead to identifying areas of unmet clinical need, market potential and rapid recruitment into trials which have the potential to give more years of patent protection after regulatory approval.
The tools to identify the best applicants for trials and to measure the effectiveness of new drugs on large numbers of patients or particular groups of patients are all embraced within a modern EMR. Information is already being used beyond clinical trials, with leading pharmaceutical companies investing in data networks to gather, analyse, share and respond to real-world outcomes and claims records.