Evidence on the safety and effectiveness of medical marijuana lacks behind the increase in cannabis use for a variety of medical conditions. One source of data to elucidate our understanding of cannabis effects are real-world data such as data collected for clinical purposes, but documentation of cannabis use that could be tracked to evaluate patient outcomes is poor.
In a recent commentary, Ruba Sajdeya, MD and Amie Goodin, PhD from the University of Florida highlight how the lack of a systematic cannabis use assessment causes gaps in cannabis documentation, clinical preparedness, and research.
Dr. Sajdeya and Dr. Goodin propose a high-level multi-step approach to close these gaps:
Improving cannabis use assessment and documentation within healthcare systems is necessary to enhance patient care and improve the quality of electronic health databases. High-quality health data can help overcome the existing knowledge gaps by accelerating research involving a wide array of cannabis-related health outcomes and evidence generation.
Access the full research article in Preventive Medicine.