A clinical case report is a detailed report of the diagnosis, treatment, signs, symptoms and follow-up of a single patient. Case report forms (CRFs) are used to standardize the collection of these patient data in clinical research studies and trials. CRFs provide a semi-structured approach for collecting data where a combination of structured categories of patient data along with free-text content is defined. Since such CRFs are predominantly attached to publications as supplementary files, it comes with various data formats (e.g., PDF, XLS, CSV, GIF, etc.).
With the increase of Open Access publications, the number of supplementary data files keeps on growing where the ability of researchers to find and reuse this information is severely limited. Beyond keyword queries of PMC/MEDLINE article indexes, researchers are unable to find CRFs using standard clinical terms to search for common clinical concepts.
The inability to adequately search supplementary files - where CRFs can accompany a clinical research trial or study publication - requires researchers to manually locate and evaluate the contents of individual CRFs. This project aims at enhancing the FAIR-ness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) of CRFs by transforming them into a structured Common Data Model (CDM) like OMOP (Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership).
Venkata Satagopam, Tim Beck