Clinical Reporting Unit

The CRU serves as a resource within CHOP Research Institute for accessing data from the electronic health record and other relevant sources, as outlined in IRB-approved protocols. Our collaborative approach lays the foundation for a comprehensive study review, including protocol evaluation, alignment with the scope of IRB approval, development of robust queries, identification of anomalies, generation of customized reports, and interpretation of results.  

The CRU team often programmatically extracts clinical data elements, including the following:

• Patient Demographic Data
• Geocodes
• Child Opportunity Index
• Area Deprivation Index
• Social Vulnerability Index
• Encounter Level Data
• Medications
• Procedure Data
• Lab
• Diagnostics
• Documentation
• Flowsheet data
• Progress note data
• Procedure note Data.

The CRU extracts data from the following clinical data sources including, but not limited to:

• EPIC - the primary ambulatory care management information system and electronic health record. CHOP adopted this system in 2000 and progressively implemented it in specialty areas and inpatient settings. The CRU is one of EPIC's most knowledgeable and active user bases and has a highly collaborative relationship with EPIC that promotes the exchange of ideas and modifications to address the unique needs of pediatric healthcare. 
• The Arcus CHOP Public Access Data Repository - a centralized hub within the Arcus environment where clinical data are de-identified and consolidated from a variety of clinical sources to present a unified view of a single research participant for data analysis, sharing and reporting. 
• Helix - a cloud-based, modern, scalable, enterprise data analytics platform that supports all of CHOP's strategic data assets. Within this system, the historic CHOP Data Warehouse and its dedicated methods are utilized at a larger scale that is easy to traverse. Helix is powered by the Snowflake Data Cloud, enabling efficient Business Intelligence reporting, visualization, data science, machine learning, real-time analytics, and self-service analytics 
• REDCap - the Research Electronic Data Capture application is secure, HIPAA-compliant, specifically designed to store and manage research data, and can also be used to create online surveys. Data can be viewed within REDCap or exported in formats suitable for statistical software.   

Contact Daniel Singleton, Senior Manager of Data Reporting and Management, with questions about the CRU’s data management capabilities. Users may also reach out to the team through the CRU Service Desk portal.

The format of data and its secure sharing method is just as crucial as its content. Healthcare data projects often generate vast quantities of records that must be carefully grouped and aggregated for effective use. The CRU provides data in customizable formats to enhance comprehension and support detailed analysis. Our team excels at identifying inconsistencies and anomalies within datasets, which enables prompt troubleshooting of potential errors and offers practical resolutions. 

We commonly provide data exports in the following formats: 

• R data frames 
• Comma-separated values (.csv) files 
• Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx) 
• XML files 
• REDCap databases 
• Arcus registries and labs 

We securely deliver data to research teams through the following methods:  

• One Drive
• Business Objects reports
• Email Encryption

CHOP uses an electronic Honest Broker (eHB) to facilitate secure linking of clinical, biological, research, and operational data across CHOP's research groups. This additional layer of security offers researchers flexibility in using data collected from electronic health records, registries, repositories, and images while protecting the individuals whose data are being used for research. The Honest Broker can enable secondary use of the research data without need for IRB protocol by removing all links to individually identifiable data.Use of the Honest Broker must be listed on research study protocols.

Learn more about CHOP's Honest Broker policy.

CRU analysts possess a comprehensive understanding of the EPIC clinical data model and its relationship to the varied, often complex, and interdisciplinary workflows at CHOP. We provide meaningful insight into clinical data while prioritizing the research team's data reporting needs and protected heath information security with adherence to a strict best practice approach using IRB protocols and other validated data extraction methods.

Our team members are available to offer guidance on utilizing clinical data.