Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research
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Often data collection for clinical studies is an afterthought. The results of such an approach are incomplete or confusing data that can, as a worst case, result in scrapping and restarting the entire study. We discuss the planning process for data collection and storage to include encounter form development; data flow and capture; data checking, verification, and validation; advantage of relational databases over spreadsheets; data security; and aspects of a complete data system.