What is BREASTChoice?
Breast cancer patients seeking reconstructive surgery have different decisions to make throughout their treatment, and the BREASTChoice app collects some of this data and relays it to their surgeon. The original software was deployed at Washington University in St. Louis, and College of Medicine Research Information Technology was responsible for getting it up and running at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
RIT's Approach to BREASTChoice
Though IT staff at Washington University in St. Louis had successfully deployed BREASTChoice in that environment, using it at Ohio State required adjustments for it to work at this clinical site.
Creating clinical alerts for research
BREASTChoice collects data about a patient's reconstructive surgery preferences, then pushes it into the EHR. Clinicians then needed to be notified of this new data, requiring a collaboration between RIT and Ohio State Wexner Medical Center IT to set up alerts. Eventually, RIT even reached out to the EHR vendor to learn what the best way was for making these changes.
Integrating with the EHR
Using software that had been previously deployed at another institution requires new configuration and translation. RIT facilitated the conversations needed between the research team and EHR specialists, and helped translate the research needs into specific technical specifications.
Final Deliverable
The collaboration between RIT, Wexner Medical Center IT, and the research team resulted in the successful deployment of the BREASTChoice app at Ohio State. Knowledge gained about the EHR and integrating research software has also helped facilitate other conversations and projects around introducing EHR changes for research purposes.