To Improve Treatments, Researchers Want To Hunt For Clues In Medical Records
The vast amount of data held in electronic medical records and insurance bills contains bits that could be useful in refining the use of approved for drugs. But how to find it?
When you go to your doctor's office, sometimes it seems the caregivers spend more time gathering data about you than treating you as a patient.
Electronic medical records are everywhere – annoying to doctors and intrusive to patients.
But now researchers are looking to see if they can plow through the vast amount of data that's gathered in those records, along with insurance billing information, to tease out the bits that could be useful in refining treatments and identifying new uses for drugs.
For instance, when the Food and Drug Administration approves a new drug, doctors often don't know the optimal dose, the ideal length of treatment or who is
