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Leslie Way (she/her) is a Manager of Clinical Data Abstraction at Holmusk and a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling based in Atlanta, GA. She has worked as a therapist at the inpatient, residential, and outpatient levels of care, primarily in the areas of trauma, disordered eating, and mood disorders. She is currently the president of the Atlanta chapter of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals. In her free time she is relaxing with her wife and 3 dogs, reading science-fiction and speculative fiction, or making something out of yarn.
As biopharmaceutical companies and regulatory bodies look toward adopting EHR-derived real-world data to complete studies more efficiently and affordably, one major concern that often arises is what has come to be known as “data missingness.”
Imagine that you are a therapist seeing a new patient for the first time. The patient says that while she has no history of clinical depression, she has been feeling really sad lately and has lost interest in the things she normally enjoys, such as cooking and creating new recipes.
When you start to ask questions, however, you begin to uncover the factors that may be impacting what your patient is currently experiencing. She tells you she has recently moved across the country and has had trouble finding a new community where she feels connected. Because she feels so sad most of the time, she has stopped calling anyone from her previous home, telling you that she “doesn’t want to bring them down.” You hypothesize that the recent drastic changes in her environment may be contributing to the symptoms of depression she describes.
