CoreLab - software for a medical research trial

[stam]

Hi all - i guess i'll be the first to post then. I have small number of apps largely used in support of medical work in my department and further afield.
I am happy to say we are going live with CoreLab this week - allowing a team of about 20 to collaborate remotely and work on the same data and manage in structured fashion.

Created with LiveCode and supported by LiveCloud as a back end database, CoreLab was created to fulfil essential functions required for a multi-centre medical research trial. The app is going live this week after an extended period of testing.

This app keeps track of all studies received by the core lab, the centres participating in the study with basic CRM, allows admins to administer the the cardiac imaging received and users to analyse these studies with ease.

Using LiveCloud as a backend data store, the data is accessible from any location on any mac/pc and all data is synchronised withe cloud. Using LiveCode’s geometry manager the interface can cater for a wide variety of machines/screen resolutions with ease. LiveCloud facilitates secure login with secure ‘forgot password’ and ‘change password’ features.

Broadly speaking the app is split into 4 interfaces:
Admin interface (admin access only)

• Administer all users
• Administer all studies
• Adding a study assigns a randomised ID for each stage
• Keep track of all centre data with build in facility to email the designated contacts
• Keep track which subjects have missing studies, incomplete or complete analyses with a simple color code in a data grid and quick filters for each.
• Allocate studies to users, which keeping tally of how many studies are allocated to each reader
• Designate studies for inter-observer analysis to be analysed by all readers

User interface (admin and user access)

• shows each user what studies are allocated for analysis
• Easily filter ‘complete’, ‘in progress’ and ‘not started’ analyses, or search for a particular randomised ID

Analysis interface (admin and user access)
Facilitate easy and standardised data entry (using point-and-click as much as possible) to track 35 variables to be filled in by each reader as quickly and easily as possible.


For example representing graphically a region of the heart and allocating a score, instead of filling in a digit between 1 and 4 for each of the 16 segments of the left ventricle.

Database interface (admin access only)

• Import data and allocate randomised IDs as needed
• Edit data in a tabular format and sync with cloud
• Export data to TSV file or copy to TSV
• Reset analyses or entire database

CoreLab greatly simplifies and streamlines a number of tasks performed by the many people involved with this study and could be rapidly developed with LiveCode.

[mwieder]

Stam- congrats - looks great. Is this HIPAA-compliant?

[AndyP]

Stam, Excellent 1st submission, looks very impressive. I really like the clean interface.
Well done.

[richmond62]

Smashing work!

Mind you: this looks like "an old friend" if memory serves:
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SShot 2021-08-09 at 15.07.54.png (34.15 KiB) Viewed 9261 times

[stam]

Stam- congrats - looks great. Is this HIPAA-compliant?

Thank you!

HIPAA compliance isn’t required as such, we are UK based, not US. The Data Protection Act is the equivalent legislature here (I make that distinction because simply being HIPAA compliant isn’t sufficient for the UK).
In this case we gained approval relatively easily as the software a) stores no local data, b) the servers are London-based and most importantly c) there is absolutely no patient identifiable data in the database. There is an information governance team in our hospital that does the relevant checks and provides approvals…

In truth the data is pseudo-anonymised, but the key to de-anonymising is based on an unrelated system, not accessible in any way through the software or from outside the hospital’s intranet.

I am planning to seek approval to store patient identifiable data on LiveCloud for other apps I am working on, I’m reasonably optimistic this will be approved, probably with some help from Mark Talluto and the LiveCloud team…

Stam

[stam]

Thanks Andy and Richmond!

@Richmond - yes I used this as examples for a thread on transparent images. This type of “bullseye” display has many uses with cardiology, so fit like a glove

[jiml]

Stam,

Congratulations on the launch!

Jim Lambert

[j9v6]

So I’ve finally read most of the posts in this thread and then I found this. This is a seriously impressive looking piece of software. Congrats! As this thread is over 2.5 years old though, just wondering if you’ve had any need to update or enhance it, or was it just used for a single research study and put out to pasture afterwards?
Al.

[stam]

Hi Al, thanks for the kind words!
It’s only been used for the one study but it’s still in use. Large mullticentre study, ongoing data mining…

The app’s use has been limited to this so far because of competing projects, funding but also (as you may imagine) because of complex politics…

I’m slowly working on some background changes and aim to make this more study-agnostic, but in truth it’s done its job and the impetus to push this further in a hurry has dropped…

[j9v6]

It sometimes goes like that doesn’t it. It certainly looks like a good tool that you’ve created & the GUI design looks pretty slick from the screenshots you shared. Have you thought about productising it for other hospitals or researchers to use?

[stam]

Thought about it, yes - but... politics.
And time...
And competing projects...
And money...


I had an opportunity to do this as I'm one of the cardiologists directly involved in the research in this case, but externally with studies of this calibre, this would have to compete with large companies providing e-CRFs (given the money involved, I'd have to have a massive starting capital to compete).

I guess there may be a market for the lower level researchers (people doing PhD, MDRes etc), but the software would need significant changes to cater to a wider audience.

One day

[richmond62]

As the "proud" owner of 5 stents in his lower cardiac artery, and a person who will be eternally grateful to some very skilful surgeons who saved my life, I can only express my admiration for your work, and say "More strength to your elbow."