About this Special Issue
The availability of electronic patient information from electronic health records, claims databases, patient support programs (PSP), and disease registries, as well as great advances in methodologies, more recently including artificial intelligence (AI) to collect, analyze and convert real-world individual-level patient data, into high-quality effectiveness and safety information, transformed the landscape of real-world evidence (RWE).
The goal of volume 1 of the special issue on RWE is to form a handbook of useful information for epidemiologists, health researchers, health economists, and regulators in the field of RWE to continue to overcome challenges facing the use of real-world data to advance patient care. Four articles covering database integration, data collection from PSP, combining multiple databases and phenotype algorithms published from July 2023 to January 2024, met the goal of volume 1 of the special issue.
Volume 2 of the special issue will focus on the pragmatic use of RWE to achieve or enhance the accessibility of drugs to patients. Recently several regulatory agencies including health authorities, reimbursement agencies, and advertising control boards all published guideline updates including the use of RWE. These guidelines show acceptance of high-quality RWE, especially those published in reputable journals to support approvals. It is expected that the number of submissions will go up and volume 2 of this special issue will be well-prepared to review and publish these submissions.
Keywords: real world evidence, real world data, common technical document, novel medications, patient care, patient data