Umass Medical School implements translational research solution

Sep 3 2009

Recombinant Data Corp., a healthcare data warehousing and clinical intelligence solutions provider, today announced that it has implemented a translational research solution at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The project, known as the Massachusetts Integrated Clinical Academic Research Database (MICARD), includes i2b2, an open source technology funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). i2b2 provides an Institutional Review Board (IRB)-compliant environment for managing and analyzing clinical data for population-based research, genomic research, clinical trials, and the development of new interventions and technologies. The solution empowers researchers through a simple self-service cohort selection interface to generate hypotheses using de-identified data from the Data Trust, Recombinant’s healthcare data warehouse solution.

The Recombinant Data Trust aggregates, cleanses and centrally manages patient information to enable integrated reporting across institutions while relieving pressure on transactional systems. It also provides system-wide governance mechanisms to control data security, privacy, and auditability.

“MICARD, as part of the Conquering Diseases Bio-Repository project, is a significant development in the field of translational research,” said Ralph Zottola, Associate CIO, UMass Medical School. “Clinical investigators were accustomed to waiting months for specific research data requests. Our implementation with Recombinant reduces this waiting period to minutes.”

“Recombinant employs a pragmatic approach to clinical data warehousing,” said Peter Emerson, chief executive officer, Recombinant Data Corp. “Our solutions deliver immediate value yet retain the ability to scale for multiple secondary uses of clinical data. This enabled UMass Medical School to broaden the original research mission of the MICARD project to include quality improvement initiatives.”

Whereas research systems are typically restricted to the use of de-indentified patient data, quality reporting necessitates the inclusion of identifiable patient information. Recombinant expanded the existing research solution at UMass Medical School to meet both requirements through the deployment of a unique Trusted Independent Data Environment (TIDE). TIDE enables researchers and clinicians to share the same data warehouse, because built-in privacy protocols ensure compliance with HIPPA regulations based upon the role of each individual user.

About Recombinant Data Corp.

Recombinant provides leading-edge data warehousing and clinical intelligence solutions to healthcare providers, academic medical centers, and life sciences researchers to deliver higher quality outcomes, accelerate personalized medicine, and lower costs. Our team of industry veterans is focused on improving the flow of reliable data to power clinical and research applications in a secure, compliant environment. For more information about Recombinant’s products and services, visit www.recomdata.com.