VISAGE: A Query Interface for Clinical Research.

We present the design and implementation of VISAGE (VISual AGgregator and Explorer), a query interface for clinical research. We follow a user-centered development approach and incorporate visual, ontological, searchable and explorative features in three interrelated components: Query Builder, Query Manager and Query Explorer. The Query Explorer provides novel on-line data mining capabilities for purposes such as hypothesis generation or cohort identification.

The University of Michigan Honest Broker: a Web-based service for clinical and translational research and practice.

For the success of clinical and translational science, a seamless interoperation is required between clinical and research information technology. Addressing this need, the Michigan Clinical Research Collaboratory (MCRC) was created. The MCRC employed a standards-driven Web Services architecture to create the U-M Honest Broker, which enabled sharing of clinical and research data among medical disciplines and separate institutions.

The evolving state of online search for consumer health information.

Online search for consumer health information is a public health concern. General-purpose search engines have historically returned health-related query results of dubious relevance and quality. Meanwhile, consumers have become increasingly reliant on and trusting of these engines.

Representing natural-language case report form terminology using Health Level 7 Common Document Architecture, LOINC, and SNOMED-CT: lessons learned.

Clinicians and biomedical research investigators ordinarily use natural language when describing biomedical concepts and constructs, even in the context of highly structured case report forms. We describe work in progress and lessons learned in translating complex natural-language concepts on case report forms into machine-readable format using the HL7 CDA, LOINC, and SNOMED-CT standards.

An 'Honest Broker' mechanism to maintain privacy for patient care and academic medical research.

Purpose: From the Hippocratic Oath to the World Medical Association's Declaration of Geneva, physicians have sworn to protect patients' privacy. However, as systems move to more integrated architectures, protecting this medical data becomes more of a challenge. The increase in complexity of IT environments, the aggregation of data, and the desire of other entities to access this data, often 24 h/day x 7 day/week x 365 day/year, is putting serious strains on our ability to maintain its security.

Usability comparison of three clinical trial management systems.

To advise in the selection of a clinical trial management system (CTMS), we evaluated three candidate applications. After preliminary analyses,we performed heuristic evaluation and usability testing to assess system's usability. Velos eResearch,a commercial CTMS, had the best usability outcome despite having fewer features in comparison.

The "Honest Broker" method of integrating interdisciplinary research data.

Multiple clinical informatics systems have been developed within separate departments of the University of Michigan Medical School. We are in the process of creating an "Honest Broker" method of safely and securely linking together data from different clinical systems for a research project studying the co-morbidity of depression and cardiovascular disease. The Michigan Clinical Research Collaboratory (MCRC) is an NIH/NHLBI Roadmap initiative funded to re-engineer the clinical research enterprise.