Leveraging the EHR to Support

Clinical Trials

Research IT develops innovative solutions in support of clinical trial recruitment, research documentation, care integration and operational workflows to support research outcomes, day to day research activities, and ensure compliant billing all directly within our EHR. We work directly with clinicians, researchers, and study teams to help facilitate exceptional patient care, great outcomes, and useful research.  

Epic EHR (Research Module)

Epic is the primary Electronic Health Records (EHR) system for UW Medicine and ITHS and Research IT is responsible for the Epic Research Module.

Researchers looking to get access, build augmentations or just discover new features that exist or can be created are encouraged to engage with our team. We have the direct hands on knowledge and experience to help find your solution.

Questions about how to leverage the Epic Research Module for your needs should be directed at the Research IT Helpdesk:

Submit Request

Helping you develop the right tool for your study’s needs.

Epic Research Services We Offer

Research IT provides consulting on building custom functionality for enterprise and study specific tools within the Epic Research module.

Enterprise Support Includes:
  • Research study and patient enrollment record interface design
  • Patient preferences and research related ordering tools (CPOE) implementation
  • Recruitment reports and inquiries
  • Research study billing and billing calendar protocol design and troubleshooting  

 

Study Specific Support Includes:
  • Study Recruitment BPAs (Best Practice Advisories)
  • Reporting Workbench (RWB) recruitment reports
  • Patient Registries
  • Contraindicated Medication Alerts
  • Adverse Event Notifications
  • Study-related InBasket Notifications (Grand Central and/or Cadence event notifications)
  • Research Result InBasket Messages 
  • Study Specific Documentation Tools (SmartForms, SmartPhrases, Notewriter, etc..) 

 

Submit A Service Request

Our team can help you use the EHR to run your clinical trial efficiently and effectively.

Training

We offer multiple training solutions centered around making you an experienced user of the Epic Research module.

Epic Research Courses

Available Epic Research Course Offerings:

  • Epic Research Fundamentals Course – Required by all research users on the UW Medicine Learning Hub
  • Instructor led individual or group training available upon request

Epic Research Tip Sheets

Epic Research Tip Sheets can be found on:

  • The Epic Learning Home SharePoint
    • Documents authored by Ann Gleason
  • The Research Home Dashboard within Epic.

Other Epic Research Training & Support Available

In conjunction with the CTMS Program Office, RIT team members are available to offer addtional training & support at:

  • CTMS Office Hours (Friday’s Only)
  • CTMS Webinar Series

Dates & Times can be found on the CTMS Program Office Website.

Get Epic Training

Rates

The UW has Internal and External billing rates based on the Institution supported and their organizations status and funding source of the project. 

Internal UW Rate

With UW Worktags

$150

External Rate

No UW Budget Number

$200

Industry Rate

Internal With Industry

$270

We invoice in the first week of the month for work done in the previous month. This amount will be automatically deducted from the supplied worktag. The billing contact you supply before beginning a consultation will get an invoice (from UW Central Billing) at that time, but generally doesn't have to do a thing.

Examples of our Work

We help researchers every day do great work, here are some examples of what we have accomplished and what we can do together. 

EpicCare Link

EpicCare Link allows study teams to grant research study monitors time-controlled secure remote access to the UW Medicine EHR in order to review relevant medical records for participants enrolled on their research studies. This eliminates unnecessary travel previously needed for onsite review and limits study monitor’s visibility to only study participant records that have been released to them by a UW Medicine team member. Since our implementation of EpicCare Link in 2021, UW RIT has received and processed more than 7000 monitor access requests.

OnCore-Epic Integrations

To streamline research operational processes and keep study and billing grid records aligned between systems, UW Medicine Research implemented both the RPE and CRPC interfaces between OnCore and Epic. Our Research IT department, in collaboration with the CTMS, Bridges, and Data Integration teams continue ongoing work to refine, enhance, and grow the interface capabilities between Epic and OnCore leveraging custom API’s in addition to the standard interface variables.

eMERGE

UW Medicine is one of 10 academic medical centers participating in the eMERGE research network. eMERGE has targeted 11 common conditions for which they will collect, store, and provide sites with the genetic risk scores, family health history, and personal health history of site participants enrolled in the study. Epic Research in collaboration with a network of UW Medicine Provider, Epic Ambulatory, and Data Integration teams are working together to facilitate the automated ingestion of the polygenic and monogenic risk scores, and care recommendations, into Epic. Providers will leverage the returned risk scores and treatment recommendations to consult with participating patients on how to improve their healthcare outcomes.