Definitions:
EHR: Electronic Health Record
EDW: Electronic Data Warehouse
CCTS: Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences
MRN: Medical Record Number
Currently, the University of Utah does not have a direct communication between Epic and REDCap. If your team would like to include EHR data in your REDCap project, you’ll need to either manually transcribe the data or request EHR data from the Electronic Data Warehouse (EDW) then prepare it for REDCap import.
EDW requests can be completed in connection with your CCTS registration. All REDCap projects are required to have a CCTS ID at the University of Utah. If you do not currently have one, you can request one here https://protracks.ccts.utah.edu/ which also includes the opportunity to request EDW services. If you already have a CCTS ID you can reach out to our team to send you the EDW service request form helpdesk@ccts.utah.edu.
Once you have your EHR data, follow these steps to prepare it for REDCap import.
Assure the variables you plan to import from the EHR exist in your REDCap project.
If your EHR variables do not exist as REDCap fields, navigate to the REDCap project left menu > designer > enter draft mode > create the fields in the desired instrument(s) > submit changes for approval
Confirm the variables are coded the same in the EHR dataset and your REDCap project. If not, be prepared to re-code the EHR data before import. You can check your REDCap coding scheme by navigating to the REDCap project left menu > codebook > find the variable and review the code
Open your EHR data in excel
Assure the data is oriented such that the first row is variable names, then each subsequent row is a record/participant
The first column will need to be the [record_id] of existing (or new) records in your REDCap project
Cell A1 should have the following text: record_id
Cell A2-# should have the record_id values
If you use MRN to match EHR data to REDCap records, follow these steps:
REDCap project left menu > data exports > custom selection > select the instrument that contains the MRN field > export data > export raw data as .csv file > open in Excel
Manually match your data, or use a VLOOKUP Excel function or INDEX & MATCH Excel functions
Save your EHR data as a .csv file
Navigate to the REDCap project left menu > data import > select the EHR data csv file > import
Special Considerations
Re-coding data
Many instances of transferring data from the EHR to REDCap will require you to re-code data. For example, you may download sex from the EHR as string values (male vs. female), whereas in REDCap your [sex] field is coded as a radio button 1 male vs. 2 female. You’d need to replace all “female” text with “2” in the “sex” column of your EHR data in excel, and subsequently replace all “male” text with “1” in this column.
Longitudinal projects