the present invention provides a system and method for selecting prospective patients for a clinical trial . in various embodiments , a clinical trials brokerage is configured to receive requests from drug companies for lists of persons meeting specified criteria for clinical trials . patient records are retrieved from a structured computerized patient record data warehouse populated with comprehensive patient information mined from unstructured hospital records . a list of persons for whom consent was obtained can be outputted and forwarded to the entity interested in performing the clinical trial and which requested the list . anonymity of a patient can be maintained until the patient provides consent to participate in the clinical trial .