BMC, Boston Health Net, and the BU CTSI are working together to support data science and research focused on people living in the city of Boston. BMC is the largest safety net provider in New England and nearly all of our Community Health Centers (CHCs) are Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). With BMC’s long history of EHR-based care dating back to 1999 and affiliated CHCs back to 2003, we now have two decades of EHR data. The Epic EHR has been in use at nearly all sites since 2015. We seek to make rich data accessible to researchers nationally, yet protect patient privacy.

Foundational Systems and Networks

The foundation for our research data systems is the BMC Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW), a repository of all the source data and its translations at BMC, which is most frequently used through expert consultations with data analysts within the BMC CDW. The BU CTSI Biomedical Informatics Core (BU-BIC) technical team regularly extracts data from EHR data in the BMC CDW and transforms them into the “Informatics for Integrating Biology with the Bedside (i2b2)” data system. I2b2 Researchers can use a WebClient, data extracts, new tools and modules (HOME Cell), etc. BMC and the BU CTSI are currently connected to three national networks.

The ACT Network is a real-time, open-access platform that allows researchers to explore and validate feasibility for clinical studies using aggregated electronic health record data from over 125M patients nationwide. Investigators are able to query the network in real-time and to obtain aggregate counts of patients who meet clinical trial inclusion and exclusion criteria from U.S. sites. The ACT network infrastructure provides a basis for cohort discovery and for developing new informatics tools to identify and recruit participants for multi-site clinical trials.

TriNetX is a cloud-based informatics platform that allows users to analyze aggregate patient populations and facilitate clinical research, study design, and clinical trial recruitment. Investigators at Boston Medical Center and Boston University have access to BMC’s de-identified patient data through a self-service, user-friendly interface and state-of-the-art visualization and analytic functions. TriNetX helps investigators explore patient populations in depth and demonstrate study feasibility in funding proposals and IRB submissions.
For general information and how to gain access to this platform please click here.
For a quick start guide for using TriNetX please click here.

National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C)

• The N3C COVID Enclave is a public-private-government partnership established during the Coronavirus pandemic to create a centralized data resource aimed at improving the efficiency and accessibility of analyses with COVID-19 clinical data, expanding our ability to analyze and understand COVID, and demonstrating a novel approach for collaborative pandemic data sharing. By leveraging our collective data resources, unparalleled analytics expertise, and medical insights from expert clinicians, we can synergize discoveries that address the pandemic beyond the sum of our parts.
• The mission of the N3C Education Tenant is to provide educators and learners a space to develop and practice the skills needed to analyze real-world data (RWD, e.g., non-clinical trial data, such as data from medical records, insurance claims, patient surveys, or census or community datasets). The Education Tenant provides simulated (also known as ‘synthetic’ or notional) datasets to learn on, as well as a series of training tutorials, the Researcher’s Guide to the N3C – a virtual textbook of the concepts and skills needed to study RWD, and access to many of the shared resources available to the broader N3C community.
• The National Clinical Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Cancer Tenant is part of a broader feasibility testing initiative being done to refine the overall governance, data linkage, and institutional partnership components of N3C. The objective of the Cancer Tenant is to test the feasibility of linking data from multiple sources to generate a comprehensive data tenant.
• The National Clinical Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Renal Tenant is part of a broader feasibility testing initiative being done to refine the overall governance, data linkage, and institutional partnership components of N3C. The objective of the Renal Tenant is to test the feasibility of a “Freeport” Inter-HHS agency data-sharing enclave, and to better understand and conceptualize the patient journey through CKD to dialysis, transplant, and beyond.

Boston University CTSI Biomedical Informatics Core (BU-BIC)

The Boston University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Biomedical Informatics Core (BU-BIC) seeks to work with the BU/BMC research community to improve access to and the use of clinical data from BMC, affiliated Community Health Centers, and other research institutions nationally and internationally. We recognize that consultation and advice are often needed by researchers to understand what is available and how to use the rich data and informatics resources within the BUMC community.

Please email BU CTSI Services if you are interested in learning more about our data science programs or for a BU-BIC consult.

BU-BIC Advisory Group: