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. 1986 Dec;145(6):798–804.

ARAMIS (The American Rheumatism Association Medical Information System)

A Prototypical National Chronic-Disease Data Bank

James F Fries 1, Dennis J McShane 1
PMCID: PMC1307153  PMID: 3492816

Abstract

ARAMIS is a prototype of a national chronic-disease data-bank system consisting of parallel, longitudinal, clinical data sets from 17 diverse locations; the data describe the courses of thousands of patients with rheumatic disease followed over many years. Chronic-disease data-bank systems include the data themselves, protocols to ensure their quality, computer systems for their manipulation, statistical procedures for analysis and an appropriately skilled staff. Such a data resource facilitates analyzing long-term health outcomes and the factors associated with particular outcomes. Such systems are mandated by the overwhelming prevalence of chronic illness; the variability, complexity and uniqueness of a patient's course; the difficulties of traditional randomized approaches in these areas, and the time span required for studying these problems.

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Selected References

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