Characterizing Real-World Data by Care Setting to Support Clinical Research

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are a main source of Real-World Data (RWD) for research, but heterogeneity across encounter types and geographical regions affects data completeness. This study characterizes clinical data from 110 Healthcare Organizations in a federated research network calculating coverage, density, and facts over time across four domains: diagnoses, procedures, laboratory tests, and medications. Inpatient encounters showed the highest coverage and density, while outpatient visits accumulated substantial records over repeated interactions, reflecting patient engagement and continuity of care. Regional differences included higher density and coverage of procedures in the United States and Latin America, and lower coverage in Asia-Pacific for emergency and outpatient procedures. A decline in outpatient and emergency data around the year 2020 reflects the COVID-19 pandemic, with slower recovery in outpatient visits. These results support data quality assessment, site benchmarking, and more precise identification of peer institutions for study-specific site selection in multicenter research.