With the development of clinical practice and transformation of the medical model, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) research has attracted considerable attention. Randomized controlled trials of traditional Chinese medicine are unable to meet the need of clinical research, while the real-world studies are more in accordance with the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine research. In this paper, the concept and characteristics of real-world studies, characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine research, and the advantages of and the application of real-world studies in the clinical research of traditional Chinese medicine, were reviewed to provide new ideas for TCM research.