How Medical Records Can Close the Information Gap in Patient Care

When clinicians are asked if a patient’s case they’re managing has a corresponding care guideline, the answer is usually “no.” As those in medicine can attest, only about 20% of patients are linked to a standard care guideline. Pair that with the fact that just shy of 20% of existing care guidelines are backed by high-quality evidence, and we arrive at a shocking conclusion: Roughly only 4% of the patient care situations a doctor must manage have guidance derived from randomized, controlled clinical trials. In other words, research is almost always lacking. Such evidence gaps force doctors to make treatment decisions without data, based solely on intuition and experience. This situation is exacerbated when physicians are caring for patients with multiple conditions, complex medical histories, or diverse ethnic backgrounds.