MGH Research Institute

Speakers: Roy Perlis, MD Center for Quantitative Health, Victor Castro, Research Information Science and Computing (RISC)

Course Description

Electronic health records are an emerging tool for the study of clinical outcomes, risk stratification, and pharmacovigilance, among many other topics relevant to clinical investigators. MGH has the advantage of having been an early adopter of such records, with more than a decade of such data, and contributed to the development of tools for applying these records for research. Still, the barrier to entry remains high, particularly for new investigators or those without access to experienced coders and analysts.

This half-day course will introduce EHR research using CQH-Mart, a tool adapted from RPDR/i2b2 that is intended to simplify longitudinal analysis of clinical data. CQH-Mart encompasses more than 1.1 million MGH and BWH hospital admissions, and includes a range of curated clinical data and outcomes. The course is particularly aimed at advanced residents, postdoctoral fellows or junior faculty looking to conduct clinical research in parallel with their clinical work. At the end of 3 hours, participants will be able to generate a deidentified data set for future analysis, either independently or with biostatistical support.

This software is still in the testing phase, so course enrollment will be restricted to the initial 12 respondents who provide a clinically relevant question they would like to investigate in a subset of hospital discharges. Those who enroll also agree to complete necessary IRB permissions to join the primary research protocol in order to access the data. (In the future, investigators with a valid IRB approval will be able to use CQH-Mart to access deidentified data directly).

Please contact dcredu@partners.org with any questions.

Category: Clinical Research

Sponsor: MGH Division of Clinical Research