Big Data, Big Challenges

The relatively rapid and recent adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in ophthalmology1,2 has been associated with the promise that the accumulation of large volumes of clinical data would facilitate quality improvement and help answer a variety of research questions. Given that EHRs are relatively new in most practices and that clinical data are inherently more complex than other fields that have been altered by the digital revolution, these proposed benefits have yet to be realized.3 The results reported by Shen et al4 in this issue of Ophthalmology (see p.