The UW Medicine Research Information Technology (RIT) team is UW’s expert data science and technology partner connecting clinical investigators with access to EHR data, building integration of study operations into the EHR, and providing custom end-to-end technology solutions in support of innovative clinical research.
Supporting Researchers Over the Entire Study Lifecycle
Pre-Research Support
In partnership with ITHS UW Medicine Research IT is here to help researchers understand what’s possible within the UW Medicine ecosystem as you work through a plan for defining your clinical data needs to then obtaining that data from the EHR and working with it effectively. Whether you are writing an IRB or planning a budget, Research IT’s role is to help navigate how your data driven research effort can be fully realized.
Recruiting Support
A given study design may depend on identifying possible participants via the EHR. Research IT supports a number of different modes of patient identification for inclusion in a study both within Epic and outside of Epic and can act as an Honest Broker for UW Medicine in releasing patient contact information in line with the guidelines of an approved IRB.
Governance
Research IT inhabits the role of an “Honest Broker” for UW Medicine, an authorized party who can release PHI and EHR data for research purposes. Following appropriate governance for data handling of HIPAA covered information is a core responsibility for our data analysts.
Using the EHR for Research
Working with protected health information safely presents its own challenges for researchers in the digital age and Research IT maintains an extensive toolkit that our own analysts utilize daily in their work. Research IT works with you to develop the appropriate data pipelines to support nearly any study need. Implementing study operations into Epic, doing electronic data collection with our fully staffed REDCap instance, sourcing data from the historical EHR warehouse: these are all possible pieces to your study’s puzzle. Extracting data from EHR and it’s many associated systems is a challenge unto itself and RIT’s Data Services analysts are your expert guide.
Secure Cloud Services
Research IT maintains a secure computing environment in a UW campus datacenter purpose-built to safely store and process EHR data. We strive to be flexible and meet any need whether it be a simple virtual server, a fully hosted application, or access to a modern GPU. Research IT’s Infrastructure team maintains a high-availability compute cluster that can scale to larger compute requirements while also keeping control of costs for larger efforts.
Application Development
Research IT builds and maintains a number of custom applications that support the full array of research activities, most notably our open source cohort discovery tool Leaf. Recent developments in AI and LLM’s are adding a whole new spin to how research happens and Research IT is actively interested in supporting these novel efforts.
We have served:
(Over last 5 years)
Principal Investigators
Institutions
Service Hours
Our Research-Focused Service Teams
Expert Teams Working Collaboratively to Realize Your Clinical Research Goals
Data Services
Whether you are ready to request specific clinical data or just want to find out what’s feasible for your study, we can help.
REDCap Services
Research IT hosts and administers the Institute of Translation Health Sciences (ITHS) REDCap instance for electronic data collection.
Research Applications
The Research IT Applications team provides integration support for UW Medicine’s EHR and Clinical Trials systems.
Solutions Development
The Solutions team builds new technology to support biomedical research across the range of activities at the University of Washington and the larger WWAMI region.
Systems Engineering
Research IT’s compute environment is PHI-safe and multipurpose. Need stand up a public facing application? Need to design a private data warehouse for long term analysis? RIT can host it.
Training Development
RIT host the ITHS Learning Management System TREE that houses training in support of research efforts spread across the WWAMI region.
Our Partners and Supported Centers
Research IT collaborates closely with the University of Washington Department of BIME, UW Medicine ITS, our CTSA (ITHS, the Institute of Translational Health Sciences), the Health Sciences Library, the UW Medicine Office of Research and Graduate Education, the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center, Seattle Children’s Research IT and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Data Science Lab (DASL).
A Toolkit for Researchers
RIT maintains a suite of applications you may want to include in your research effort. The ITHS REDCap installation hosted by Research IT has one of the largest user bases in the country. The innovative open source tool Leaf, enabling easy clinical data navigation via interactive querying of EHR data, was fostered within Research IT.
Epic Research Module
Epic is the primary Electronic Medical Records system for UW Medicine. The Epic Research Module is research specific functionalities and features to support patient care and medical research.
Clinical Trials Management System
(CTMS)
Research IT supports the Clinical Trials Management System, OnCore and it’s many integrations.
LEAF
Leaf is an open source web application for querying live clinical data for UW Medicine QI/Research investigators and allows users to query clinical databases built with nearly any data model for cohort identification and data extraction.
TREE
The ITHS-developed Translational Research Education Engine (TREE) learning management system offers educational opportunities and content hosting services for greater ITHS clinical and translational science community. TREE is built on a user-friendly platform that offers an engaging, interactive learner experience.
REDCap
Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) is a rapidly evolving web tool used for creating electronic data collection instruments developed by researchers for researchers.
Vestigo
Vestigo is an application for Investigational Drug Service pharmacies providing inventory management, compliance monitoring and reporting, and real-time integration with the OnCore API.
RISE
RISE is a web application designed to serve as a common tracking platform for programs and services across ITHS. RISE allows ITHS staff to enter data and track people, projects, services and events related to CTSA activities across all program areas.
TRU Scheduler
The TRU (Translational Research Unit) calendar is a custom built web-based application created to meet the specific calendaring and scheduling requirements of an organization providing Clinical Resources.