Clinical Data Interoperability Services (CDIS)

What is CDIS?

Clinical Data Interoperability Services (CDIS) is an advanced feature of REDCap that must be enabled by a REDCap administrator. This feature allows an individual REDCap project to interact with an electronic health record (EHR) such as EPIC, Cerner, etc. and pull selected information from the EHR into the REDCap project. This is done through the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) web service inside of an EHR which can pull structured data into REDCap using OAuth2 authorization. For a complete list of available data that can be pulled into REDCap please see CDIS documentation below:

The two CDIS options available are called Clinical Data Pull and Clinical Data Mart.

  • Clinical Data Pull (CDP) – Formerly called Dynamic Data Pull (DDP), CDP is a special CDIS feature for importing information from an EHR into an existing REDCap project either manually in real time or automatically at a regular interval specified by a REDCap user. From the EHR interface, Clinical Data Pull can create new records in a CDP-enabled REDCap project. Additionally, if a user knows the patient identifier (e.g., medical record number), they could optionally enter the MRN for a record in a CDP-enabled REDCap project, after which it will then go and immediately retrieve the patient data from the EHR in real time. This option is best for researchers who are conducting prospective studies and need to frequently update multiple records and fields in REDCap with information from the EHR. Ex: clinical trials, IITs, etc.
  • Clinical Data Mart (CDM) – CDM is a special CDIS feature in which data can be fetched in bulk from an EHR system into a REDCap project. CDM must be initiated on the project creation page and the ability to create a CDM project is managed through the REDCap user profile. To retrieve the desired data a fetch request must be created and within that request the date range in which to look, specific data elements, and a list of MRNs must be specified. These three requirements can be provided at the time of project creation or after creation from within the Clinical Data Mart page. CDM historically was best suited for researchers who are conducting retrospective studies and need to pull EHR data once and with minimal updating.  

CDIS Documentation

CDIS is intended to help with the burden of manual extraction from the EHR, by providing an automatic way to pull information. The following data elements can currently be imported from an EHR into REDCap:

  • Demographics: includes address (street address, city, state, postal code, country), date of birth, first and last name, home and mobile phone numbers, gender, race, and ethnicity
  • Current problems list
  • Medications list (active, completed, on-hold, stopped)
  • Allergy Intolerance list
  • Vital Signs
  • Laboratory
  • Adverse Event (Research Related Only)
  • Core Characteristics (Gestational age at birth and Birth Weight)
  • Encounter List
  • Immunization
  • Appointments
  • Scheduled Surgeries
  • Dental Findings
  • Genomics
  • Infections
  • Medical History
  • Reason for visit
  • Insurance Coverage
  • Implants
  • Procedures
  • Clinical Notes

Set Up Instructions and Technical Specifications

More technical specifications and setup instructions can be found in the “Setup instructions and technical specifications (Zip)” document in the REDCap software control center.