The Increasing Role of Pragmatic Clinical Trials and Real-World Data in Healthcare Research

Healthcare systems are institutions that deliver healthcare services to meet the health needs of individuals or a community. Healthcare services are delivered in defined settings, such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, or clinics. Healthcare research is defined as the creation of knowledge by performing studies in healthcare settings. This type of research is performed by multidisciplinary teams of healthcare practitioners with the primary goal of generating new knowledge that will improve the quality of patient care. During the planning phase of a healthcare study, it is important to select an optimal study design. In this perspective, definitions of common study designs will be reviewed and the increasing role of pragmatic clinical trials and realworld data in healthcare research will be described.