Part of Research IT’s mandate is to operationally support reporting from the Clinical Trials Management System (CTMS), the app required for managing Clinical Trials operations for all of UW and FHCC. Research IT is also tasked with supporting Research-focused reporting from Epic, the shared EHR in use at both institutions. Research IT was uniquely situated to not only collect that data but also help folks understand the overall data landscape at UW and properly put that data in its correct context.
A huge portion of this reporting effort was about setting expectations regarding what data was available and from where. For instance, though the Clinical Trials administration process has been mature for Oncology studies for some time, for non-Oncology studies the process had only recently become a mandatory part of UW Policy, so it was important to distinguish why 2022 data looks somewhat different than 2024. Oncology itself has its own very specific requirements about how things are documented, with sensitivity about how any enrollment numbers should be counted. Beyond simply providing a de-identified dataset, a dashboard was built to document the complexities and nuance involved and highlight some top level findings that might better inform subsequent analysis.
Research IT’s ground-level knowledge of the organizations EHR data, Clinical Trials process, and its active support of similar Federal reporting requirements were all critical pieces in successfully telling the story of this data.
