In medical record review, researchers simply review patients’ medical records to discover patterns that help doctors make decisions about patients’ medical care.
For example, they might track what medications doctors prescribed and how well patients responded. Over time, researchers can sometimes tell which medications work better than others.
Reviewing medical records can be useful, but by itself it sometimes leads to the wrong answer about what medication is best. One way to address the limitations of medical record review is an approach called randomization.
Watch a video on approaches to Research on Medical Practices.