Traditionally clinical trial outcomes are recorded as single reports (often with handcrafted
Narrative descriptions) at face-to-face research clinic visits. Typically, original medical records are gathered, copied and couriered to a trial coordinating centre, and then verified by trial clinicians according to pre-specified rules. The process is inefficient, expensive, and prone to errors.

We are looking back into previous trial datasets linked to other routinely collected medical data, acquired during people’s usual care, to identify more streamlined, and potentially more reliable methods to cost-effectively collect information for trials with fewer steps, with a particular focus on vascular outcomes and bleeding outcomes.

We are also developing methods to rapidly ascertain outcomes relevant to Covid-19 trials using the RECOVERY trial platform, which has recruited and started following about 40,000 participants in the UK since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic: https://www.recoverytrial.net/

Dr Will Herrington