Data collection as a barrier to personalized medicine

• High cost limits the heterogeneity of phenotypes represented in clinical studies.
• Thus, replicable, affordable clinical research will have to rely on observational data.
• Intelligent software enables collection of standardized data to meet these needs.
• Intelligent software to collect clinical data will improve outcomes in everyday care.

Basic life science research holds the promise of personalizing medical care. However, translation steps from the laboratory to the bedside are not trivial. Results from clinical research are difficult to replicate in part because study cohorts are poorly defined phenotypically. Here, we discuss how computer technology can improve the collection of clinical data to enable translation of insights from basic science to validated clinical guidelines.