Ahn Seong Joon
Department of Ophthalmology, Hanyang University Hospital, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2024 Jul 19;14(14):1568. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics14141568.
Real-world data (RWD) has emerged as a crucial component in understanding and improving patient outcomes across various medical conditions, including retinal diseases. Health claims databases, generated from healthcare reimbursement claims, offer a comprehensive source of RWD, providing insights into patient outcomes, healthcare utilization, and treatment effectiveness. However, the use of these databases for research also presents unique challenges. This narrative review explores the role of real-world research on retinal diseases using health claims databases, highlighting their advantages, limitations, and potential contributions to advancing our understanding and management of the diseases. The review examines the applications of health claims databases in retinal disease research, including epidemiological studies, comparative effectiveness and safety analyses, economic burden assessments, and evaluations of patient outcomes and quality of care. Previous findings demonstrate the value of these databases in generating prevalence and incidence estimates, identifying risk factors and predictors, evaluating treatment effectiveness and safety, and understanding healthcare utilization patterns and costs associated with retinal diseases. Despite their strengths, health claims databases face challenges related to data limitations, biases, privacy concerns, and methodological issues. Accordingly, the review also explores future directions and opportunities, including advancements in data collection and analysis, integration with electronic health records, collaborative research networks and consortia, and the evolving regulatory landscape. These developments are expected to enhance the utility of health claims databases for retinal disease research, resulting in more comprehensive and impactful findings across diverse retinal disorders and robust real-world insights from a large population.
真实世界数据（RWD）已成为理解和改善包括视网膜疾病在内的各种医疗状况下患者预后的关键组成部分。由医疗报销申请产生的健康声明数据库提供了全面的真实世界数据来源，能深入了解患者预后、医疗利用情况和治疗效果。然而，将这些数据库用于研究也带来了独特的挑战。这篇叙述性综述探讨了利用健康声明数据库进行视网膜疾病真实世界研究的作用，强调了其优势、局限性以及对推进我们对这些疾病的理解和管理的潜在贡献。该综述考察了健康声明数据库在视网膜疾病研究中的应用，包括流行病学研究、比较有效性和安全性分析、经济负担评估以及患者预后和医疗质量评估。先前的研究结果表明了这些数据库在生成患病率和发病率估计、识别风险因素和预测指标、评估治疗有效性和安全性以及了解与视网膜疾病相关的医疗利用模式和成本方面的价值。尽管健康声明数据库有其优势，但也面临与数据局限性、偏差、隐私问题和方法学问题相关的挑战。因此，该综述还探讨了未来的方向和机遇，包括数据收集和分析的进展、与电子健康记录的整合、合作研究网络和联盟以及不断演变的监管环境。这些发展有望提高健康声明数据库在视网膜疾病研究中的效用，从而在各种视网膜疾病中得出更全面、更有影响力的结果，并从大量人群中获得有力的真实世界见解。
