Opportunities for electronic health record data to support business functions in the pharmaceutical industry--a case study from Pfizer, Inc.

The Pfizer Healthcare Informatics team conducted a series of guided interviews with 35 Pfizer senior leaders to elicit their understanding, desires, and expectations of how Electronic Health Records (EHR) might be used in the pharmaceutical industry today and/or in the future. The interviews yielded fourteen use case categories comprising 42 specific use cases. The highest priority use cases were "Drug Safety & Surveillance," "Clinical Trial Recruitment," and "Support Regulatory Approval." Fifteen EHR companies were surveyed to assess their functionality against the specified use cases. Self-reported responses from the EHR companies were highest for "Virtual Phase IV Trials" and "Document Management for Clinical Trials." This research identifies preliminary opportunities for EHR products to provide aggregate, blinded data to address the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. However, further collaboration between the stakeholders will be necessary to ensure the full realization of the opportunities for data re-use.