You Have the Patients. Not the Dataset.

Most departments see enough patients in a year to settle a question the literature is still arguing about.

Almost none can publish from them, because the question was never asked until long after the notes were written. The usual sequence is a topic chosen in April, a registrar sent to the records room in May, and a dataset in June missing precisely the variable the question turned on.

Notes written for billing and continuity cannot, years later, be made to behave like a case report form. No amount of care in the analysis will rescue what was never recorded.

The design has to exist before the data, not after it.

Continue reading — New Series

You Have the Patients. Not the Dataset.

Part 1 of a new four-part series on turning routine care into evidence that survives peer review — why the design must exist before the data, and how structured capture inside the clinical workflow makes every consultation count towards the study. Share your email to read the full piece.