Data Acquisition & Processing
The Data Coordination Center (DCC) serves as a critical element of the IDCRP’s research efforts by providing high-quality data collection, management, processing, and access.
The DCC is the hub of IDCRP’s scientific research efforts and the home of the IDCRP’s data system designers, data managers, and SAS and Oracle programmers. This group (led by Edward Parmelee, Chief) provides expertise to principal investigators for the conceptualization, design, collection, management and cleaning, analysis, and publication of research study data. The DCC resources are utilized in IDCRP studies where the Program is the primary data collector or data repository. To fulfill its mission of supporting the IDCRP’s scientific goals, the DCC’s strategic focus is on ensuring high-quality data collection, management, processing, and access, as well as improving the efficiency and efficacy of our processes and ensuring we are staffed appropriately.
In FY21, the DCC provided support services for 41 of the Program’s research studies, 4 of which were wholly virtual (i.e., no subjects were consented, and all data were abstracted from DoD data repositories). Work completed includes creation or modification of data collection projects for several studies, provision of analysis data for many studies, completion of the approval process to acquire data from the Military Health System Data Repository (MDR) for a few studies, and acquisition of data from the MDR for multiple studies. For many of IDCRP’s ongoing, non-COVID-19 related studies, most of the work was completed in FY21Q3 and Q4. Prior to that, DCC resources were primarily supporting data operations for studies related to COVID-19. The Program’s primary COVID study, EPICC, continued to heavily impact data operations, as COVID-19 science continued to evolve, and the data endpoints of interest changed. IDCRP’s oldest legacy data collection systems, called ClinworX, was formally retired in FY21.
DCC has several systems-related projects planned for FY22, in addition to our regular study work. Specifically, we expect to design, create, and implement the migration of at least two of our long-term, large ongoing studies from their current legacy data management system (ClinPlus or Mi-Forms) into REDCap. These projects will each take between 6 and 12 months to complete. We will improve our recently migrated new subject registry system for the HIV Natural History Study, to allow direct interaction with the Registry by site staff. Both the Mi-Forms Data Collection platform and the ClinPlus electronic data capture system will be decommissioned, after the last of the data collection currently being done in each system migrated to REDCap. The first research data repository will be built for the HIV Natural History Study, and the creation of repositories for other studies should soon follow. IN addition, we plan to onboard data collection using phone-base applications, a first for IDCRP.
Highlights
- In FY21, acquired data from the MHS Data Repository for six studies.
- IN FY21, one study was transferred from our legacy data collection systems to REDCap. In FY22 and FY23, the final two studies will be transferred.
- FY21 saw the fruition of our capability to support remote participation in IDCRP studies. To accommodate COVID-19-based restrictions on travel and personal contact, several studies allowed subjects to complete study activities remotely; the EPICC study has a component where subjects only participate remotely.