Shalini's Knowledge Share

So I took my new position as a BI developer in a hospital where I was asked to make an application for one of the hospital\’s departments that will get the data so that it will reduce the amount of papers being used. I was given only one option: RedCap.

So RedCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a web-based application built by Vanderbilt University which is used mostly used as a tool clinical data capture. Bit like survey monkey. This tool is build on top of PHP and uses MySQL database to store the data.

Some features about this tool;
1. Allows to capture data – data is stored in name – value pairs in MySQL database.
2. Allows reporting – however limited. Cannot make customized reports.
3. Dynamic Data Pool (DDP) – connect with external data sources. Currently supports only 1 connection and one data set per REDCap instance. However, this can be improved using the Project Specific external modules
4. WebDAV – helps to transfer files for different file systems located internally and externally.
5. External Modules – people have contributed to REDCap by developing many external modules that allows us to use REDCap more effectively. Examples – Project DDP, Shazam (organize fields), admin dashboards, report customizations
6. Randomization – helps the researchers to effectively do their work.
7. Integration with eHR – example Epic, Cerner
8. Hooks and plugins – allows those programming experts to fine tune the REDCap usage using it\’s PHP code. (I have done this to compile the data filed in the forms into a PDF and send it to a different server using WEBDav)

Usually, the set up is that, the MySQL database sits in an internal server, and the application server can be internal or external. This advantages over using other tools like survey monkey where the hospital data being stored in a cloud.