this type of study in the clinical follow-up activities
of medical devices.
3.1 Real Life Data Warehouses
Bégaud et al. define "real-life data," as "data that are
without intervention in the usual patient management
arrangements and are not collected in an
experimental context (which, notably, is the case with
randomized controlled trials), but which are
generated during the routine care of a patient, and
which therefore reflect a priori current practice. Such
data can come from multiple sources : they can be
extracted from computerized patient records, or
constitute a by-product of the information used for
healthcare reimbursement; they can be collected
specifically [...], or to constitute registries or cohorts,
or more punctually as part of ad hoc studies; they can
also come from the web, social networks, connected
objects, etc." This definition is included in the more
general definition of "health data" proposed in
Article 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) and supplemented in Recital 35 of the GDPR
(Ministère_des_affaires_sociales_et_de_la_santé,
2016; Bernard Bégaud, 2017;
Club_de_la_Sécurité_de_l'information_Français,
2019).
As a result, there are a multitude of data sources
available to provide insight into questions related to
the efficacy, safety, and use of medical devices.
To illustrate the wide variability of real-life data
sources and processing possibilities, two typologies
of real-life data repositories that can be used in
manufacturers' post-market clinical follow-up
strategy are presented below. It should be noted that
these examples are not intended to be an exhaustive
presentation of all the solutions available to
manufacturers.
3.1.1 Practice Registries
Practice registers are integrated with the aim of
evaluating, monitoring and improving practices.
They are databases made up of standardized data
(specifically entered to feed the registry), resulting
from professional practices, most often relating to a
specific theme. The collection and analysis of these
data are widespread within professional
organizations, learned societies or networks. The
setting up of a practices register is orchestrated by a
professional structure made up of peers who run the
register and are responsible for:
i) the theme of the register;
ii) the design of the register (this includes
compliance with the regulations applicable to
the collection and processing of the data
collected and guarantees of confidentiality of
the data relating to the patients and health
professionals involved);
iii) the quality of the data collected and the
methodology for entering the data;
iv) analysing and exploiting the data collected
(CNIL; HAS, 2014;
Group_IMDRF_Patient_Registries_Working, 2016).
Certain fields, such as thoracic and vascular surgery,
orthopaedics and interventional radiology, are among
those for which practice registers are frequently
implemented (CHRU_Tours, 2021; Besse, 2020;
Berghmans, 2020). However, as long as they comply
with the regulations and methodology described
above, these tools can be deployed in many fields of
application, with the operation and constraints
specific to each register.
Exploiting the real-life data provided by practice
registries is part of the routine activities carried out by
manufacturers in the context of their post-market
clinical follow-up activities. Indeed, the periodic
reports published within the framework of the
bibliographic monitoring carried out by
manufacturers, are a means of updating the state of
knowledge on medical devices and the pathologies
under evaluation. They generally feed the state of the
art with, for example, data relative to the clinical
conditions of use of medical devices (target
population, indications, type of medical device or
assembly preferred, etc.). In addition, some practice
registries now offer services that allow a
manufacturer to access aggregate data analysis
reports for medical devices for which it is the legal
manufacturer. That way, the manufacturer can use
practice registry data as a source of clinical data
specific to its medical devices.
However, the independent and often voluntary
nature of this type of approach does not always allow
for comparability of data between different registries
(items filled in, methods of inclusion, granularity of
information provided not always sufficient for the
manufacturer to accurately identify the medical
device used, etc). In addition, the data format and
access restrictions generally do not allow the
manufacturer to remove all uncertainties regarding
the medical device of interest (aggregated data,
access to manufacturer data only). Finally, the reports
submitted reflect the results of device use as of the
date of the report. This limits longitudinal follow-up.