The ICTR Informatics Core piloted a new informatics consult service for researchers in January 2019. Researchers who are preparing to submit a grant or preparing their IRB protocol and who need information and guidance regarding data, technology, and related cost and governance matters are encouraged to apply for this free consult service. We offer 90 minute sessions attended by Dr. Christopher Chute, Diana Gumas, and invited guests (as required) to address the specific questions being posed by the study teams. To apply for an informatics consult, please click on this application link. The form requires: Name Email address Phone number … Continue reading →

If you need a letter of support from the ICTR Informatics Core, please contact Diana Gumas or Christopher Chute so that we can better understand your proposed study, and provide you with a signed letter of support on official letterhead.  

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a programming technique to find and extract data of interest from text documents. NLP can sometimes involve a simple search for known text strings but is often more complex due to the ways that human beings use language. For example, the concept of smoking could be expressed in many different ways in a text document, such as “has never smoked”, “used to smoke 3 packs a day”, “recently quit smoking”, “is in a smoking cessation program”. The Center for Clinical NLP, with faculty and staff from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins … Continue reading →

Clinical researchers often need data from Johns Hopkins data systems in order to conduct their study. The ICTR Informatics Core (i2c) is pleased to provide multiple services to assist researchers with their IRB-approved data needs. Most often, researchers are seeking data from the Epic medical record system. Epic is used at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Howard County General, Sibley Memorial, Suburban Hospital, and Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. In addition to manual chart abstraction, researchers have a few different options for getting data from Epic: Use existing Epic reports, with the approval of the Epic Research … Continue reading →

The Data Trust provides Johns Hopkins Medicine with the technical infrastructure, standards, policies and procedures, and organization needed to bring together patient and member-related data from across the health system to support our mission. The goals of the Data Trust are to: Ensure security and privacy of our patients’ data. Consolidate teams to address organizational priorities and reduce redundancy. Increase the value of data through better integration and analytics. Investigators may be referred for a Data Trust review if their study meets certain review triggers, such as the sending of identifiable patient data outside of Johns Hopkins or storing large amounts … Continue reading →

The ICTR Informatics Core provides multiple tools and services for study recruitment. These include: With prior IRB approval, investigators may use SlicerDicer to get an identifiable list of patients for whom they have provided care who meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria for their study. With IRB approval, the Core for Clinical Data Acquisition (CCDA) can provide investigators with a list of patients that meeting their study’s inclusion and exclusion criteria. SlicerDicer cannot be used if the investigator needs to recruit patients who they have not previously had a treating relationship or if the inclusion and exclusion criteria for their … Continue reading →

Investigators are encouraged to use the following text for their grants. If you need grant text for a topic not listed below, please contact Diana Gumas.