Cutting-Edge Informatics, Tools, & Expertise for Clinical & Translational Research
TRI is dedicated to advancing the use of cutting-edge informatics, providing researchers with the tools, expertise and procedures for clinical and translational research. This is done through the CIRC, a partnership with the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the UAMS College of Medicine, TRI’s BERD function, Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS), and Arkansas Department of Health (ADH).
Biomedical Informatics General Consultation.
Consultation is the starting point for most CIRC supported projects. Consultations focus on identifying the type of study and appropriate study design (in collaboration with BERD) and appropriate data management and analysis strategies. Joint consultations with BERD are provided to all applicants for TRI funding opportunities as a free service to ensure feasibility of the proposed projects. The outcome of most consultations is a research plan and budget proposal, properly formatted for grant applications.
Development of Surveys and Data Collection Forms.
Data capture form creation for surveys and qualitative research, database & data management support are provided based on REDCap. Multiple REDCap instances customized for specific needs & research teams (ACH, UAMS, CAVHS) are coordinated by CIRC.
Data Management and Sharing Plan Support.
Drawing on NIH and institutional templates, CIRC provides support for completing the required plan for grant submissions, identification of appropriate data management resources (including the ARIES system) and appropriate data sharing, that includes but is not limited to data publication sites.
Investigator Initiated Clinical Trial Data capture and Management Support.
Investigator initiated trial data management support including data management plan creation, data capture forms development (using OpenClinica and other EDC systems), data capture interfaces based on FHIR, database creation and management including backup, and data publication support services are provided.
AR-CDR Data Queries.
AR-CDR is a research data warehouse that provides a single and secure source of data for use in CTR. AR-CDR integrates data from UAMS EHRs (hospital and regional programs), multiple registries (e.g., cancer and trauma), and cancer genomics. It may be directly accessed via i2b2, ACTS and TriNetX self-service portals or with the assistance of CIRC experts.
Collection and Management of Research Images and Multimedia Data.
The ARIES repository is linked to AR-CDR2 and provides data acquisition, curation and management for research studies involving imaging and multi-media data. Data access is restricted to research team members and prepared for open access data publication.
Access and Analysis Support for Population Databases.
CIRC maintains the UAMS copy of the Arkansas All Payer Claims Database (APCD) and the 2 secure analysis environments that have been created to support this resource (SAS, R/Python) as well as providing access to 160 population data resources.
Epic Cosmos
A collective database of EHR patient information. Epic organizations choose to participate in Cosmos and contribute a HIPAA-defined limited data set for all patients to the centralized Cosmos database. Every Cosmos user has access to the data set that continues to grow over time. Users can explore Cosmos with SlicerDicer, Epics data exploration tool, or with data science tools, such as R, Python, and SQL Server Management Studio, available within a user-specific virtual machine.