Meeting growing demand for real-world evidence
The treatments we receive should be evidence-based, and we at NEC Software Solutions are on a mission to make that evidence gold-standard. Our head of real-world evidence, Richard Armstrong, explains where gaps in evidence can exist and how filling them will drive better care and better outcomes.
Real-world evidence involves the collection and analysis of data on patients, treatments and outcomes. It delivers real-world benefits by helping clinicians, regulators and industry to understand what’s safe and what works.
Quality evidence means better outcomes
Take hip replacements. By the end of 2025, a further 100,000 people in the UK will have one.1 Each time, a surgeon will decide which procedure, and which device, is likely to offer the best results. As one of the most common surgeries performed by the NHS, getting it right creates huge benefits for patients, not to mention for the public purse.
For hip replacement these decisions are made easier by the National Joint Registry (NJR). The world’s largest orthopaedic registry, holding comparative data on millions of surgeries, provides a robust and independent evidence base on what works best. And it’s not just surgeons this information supports.
Supporting the healthcare ecosystem
The NJR is also invaluable for the MedTech sector. Companies can submit details of their devices and receive aggregated and anonymised information on the outcomes experienced by the patients who receive them. They can share this information with their regulator to keep their approvals, with hospitals to promote greater take-up, and with their innovation teams to inform new product development. Patients can use the information too to inform their treatment choices.
If registries like this already hold trusted and accurate real-world evidence, what else is needed?
Making evidence smarter
Sometimes, manufacturers can’t get exactly what they need to evidence compliance from the routinely collected registry data, at least not without expensive clinical studies. NEC can help bridge that gap by combining data from different sources to measure the performance of their devices against industry benchmarks.
For example, we’re working with hospitals such as The Walton Centre, an NHS Trust specialising in neurology and neurosurgery, to add their clinical insight to data collected by the Spine Tango registry. By revealing not just the long-term effectiveness of an implant but also the achievement of a particular outcome – such as spinal fusion – we’re helping companies to evidence compliance faster and more cost-effectively and at the same time giving the Trust additional insight, along with extra revenue.
Connecting future care outcomes
We want to transform healthcare evidence by creating new data pathways and using new, richer sources. Smart evidence, from trusted sources, will drive intelligence-led and evidence-based health outcomes for all patients, not just those in particular specialties. Healthy lives depend on the quality of everyday decisions, and our vision is for that to extend into truly connected care.
