The coordinator could, in theory, open charts one by one. At three minutes per chart, reviewing just the cardiology and endocrinology panels — perhaps 40,000 records — would take 2,000 hours. Roughly 50 weeks of full-time work, assuming no other responsibilities. Which, of course, is absurd.

This is why database-driven identification exists. It is the difference between searching for 50 people by walking door to door across a city and querying the city's records to find addresses that match specific criteria. Both approaches can find the same people. One takes weeks; the other takes an afternoon. But the database approach introduces its own problems — problems that, if you do not understand them, will waste your time in a different and more insidious way than chart-by-chart review ever could.

The previous two lessons taught you to review individual records (Lesson 1) and to conduct telephone pre-screening with callers who present themselves (Lesson 2). This lesson teaches the third identification strategy: going to the data proactively, at the population level, to find people who do not yet know they might be eligible.

The coordinator could, in theory, open charts one by one. At three minutes per chart, reviewing just the cardiology and endocrinology panels — perhaps 40,000 records — would take 2,000 hours. Roughly 50 weeks of full-time work, assuming no other responsibilities. Which, of course, is absurd.

This is why database-driven identification exists. It is the difference between searching for 50 people by walking door to door across a city and querying the city's records to find addresses that match specific criteria. Both approaches can find the same people. One takes weeks; the other takes an afternoon. But the database approach introduces its own problems — problems that, if you do not understand them, will waste your time in a different and more insidious way than chart-by-chart review ever could.

The previous two lessons taught you to review individual records (Lesson 1) and to conduct telephone pre-screening with callers who present themselves (Lesson 2). This lesson teaches the third identification strategy: going to the data proactively, at the population level, to find people who do not yet know they might be eligible.