Clinical Data: Best Clinical Datasets & Databases

What is Clinical Data?

In the broadest sense, clinical or medical data refers to any health-related information that is associate with regular patient care or as part of a clinical trial programme. While patient details themselves are, of course, anonymous, there is a lot of information that is collected during the course of patient care that can be used by medical professionals or academics in their research. This data is collected, stored, analyzed and then sometimes disseminated depending on the case and people’s clinical data needs.

How is Clinical Data collected?

The main way to collect clinical data is through health records, most of which are now electronic. These contain cast amounts of patient information and now that most are electronic this means that the clinical data can be processed and analzyed much more easily. Electronic healthcare records provide a comprehensive overview of a patient’s medical history and are particularly good sources of clinical data because they are updated everytime you visit your healthcare professional.
Administrative data is another good source of clinical data as it provides a different type of information. This is often non-clinical research data that focuses on record-keeping and discharge information. This type of data is useful for the administrative running of medical practices.
Health surveys are also sometimes used to collect clinical data. These can use to evaluate and/or tally statistics and give a good general overview of a country or areas most common health issues.

What are the attributes of Clinical Data?

The typical attributes of clinical data will change depending on the type of data you are accessing.
Electronic health record data - The typical information these records will give you would be details about vital signs, such as heart and repiratory rate or body temperature. It may include diagnostic-related information, such as labratory results, genetic tests results or medical imagery, like MRI scans or X-Rays. Finally, health records will include treatment information, such as medication that has been prescribed. This information, much like all clinical data, will be anonymous to protect patient privacy.
Administrative data - This can be any administrative information, such as patient bed capacity or discharge details. This is used to ensure the smooth running of a hospital.
Disease registries - These are clinical records about specific chronic conditions, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease. These record information about people suffering from the same diseases which is used to manage patient conditions.

What is Clinical Data used for?

There are many different uses of clinical data. Medical practitioners use this information to keep a record of their patients’ health and to diagnose and treat them when needed. Having comprehensive clinical datasets, medical practitioners can recognise and treat medical issues as swiftly as possible.
Clinical data is also used by medical students in their research. By having access to clinical data, they can learn from this information and be in the best position to recognise and treat illnesses and injuries when they encounter them in their professional careers.
Researchers use clinical data in their study of the human body. This information can be used to better understand the diseases that humans suffer and to discover new treatments.
The final main use of clinical data is the administrative information that is collected. This is used by hospitals to regulate their capacity and ensure the smooth running of their operations. This is where hospital discharge information is particularly important.

How can a user assess the quality of Clinical Data?

Due to the wide scope of information covered by the clinical data umbrella, it is hard to assess the quality of these datasets. The best clinical datasets will be ones that are suited to your personal needs and the type of information which you are looking for. Therefore, it is important to ask for a data sample before you buy to ensure it matches your needs. Lastly, always check the data provider’s reviews before buying to ensure you are getting the best data possible.

Where can I buy Clinical Data?

Data providers and vendors listed on Datarade sell Clinical Data products and samples. Popular Clinical Data products and datasets available on our platform are Medical Practicioner Database UK - General practicioner surgeries and clinical commissioning groups (CCG) by Oscar Research by Oscar Research, Syntegra Synthetic EHR Data | Structured Healthcare Electronic Health Record Data by Syntegra, and CarePrecise Collection U.S. HCP/HCO Dataset by CarePrecise.

How can I get Clinical Data?

You can get Clinical Data via a range of delivery methods - the right one for you depends on your use case. For example, historical Clinical Data is usually available to download in bulk and delivered using an S3 bucket. On the other hand, if your use case is time-critical, you can buy real-time Clinical Data APIs, feeds and streams to download the most up-to-date intelligence.