Table 1.

Opportunities and challenged of big data in clinical research

Characteristic	Opportunities	Challenges
High volume	Large sample sizes and high statistical power	Data may be too large to store and process on a single computer, achievable with cloud computing.
High velocity	Can generate timely, relevant research	Risk of getting swamped with new data.
High variety	Potential to use novel sources of data, for example, images, smart devices, genomics	May need conversion into a usable format e.g. free text from medical notes to structured data.
Real world	Reflects real-world patients and clinical practice	Data often messy with missing data, needs lots of work to make research ready.
Not collected for research	Costs less to collect data	May not contain all the information you want, outcome data may be unavailable and not adjudicated.