Data Science Fellowship
The Big Data Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP) is a two-year fellowship program that uses data science to advance research and patient care. The Veterans Health Administration advanced fellowship launched in 2015 in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the program provides well-rounded training and unparalleled access to VA data resources and NCI cancer research expertise. Abstract image – Integrating Big Data and healthcare. The Veterans Health Administration is America’s largest integrated healthcare system, providing care at 1,250 health care facilities and serving 9 million enrolled Veterans each year. The long-term care Veterans receive within this centralized healthcare system provides a rich source of longitudinal patient data- covering patients through period of health and illness. This is unique to the VHA, as the care patients receive in other US healthcare organization is often fragmented among different clinical sites, making it difficult to obtain a complete patient profile through the aggregation of medical records. Within the integrated healthcare system, there are many untapped opportunities to gain insights from patient data to advance cancer research and care. BD-STEP provides an avenue to access the rich, diverse data available in the VA Electronic Health Record (EHR), including longitudinal clinical patient data and diagnosis and treatment information from the VA Central Cancer Registry. BD-STEP utilizes the expertise of early-career data scientists to analyze these data and facilitate the execution of large-scale system changes in clinical care.
Learn more and apply online at: https://www.research.va.gov/naii/BD-STEP/default.cfm