Strategic Initiatives

The Office of the Chief Research Information Officer focuses on leadership, innovation and facilitating service across research informatics at OHSU, including basic, clinical and translational science.  

Leadership

The Office of the CRIO has led institutional and external efforts to align research informatics strategy across the institution, garner leadership support and funding and establish partnerships to compliment existing infrastructure. Read more about these efforts below.

Icon of a building with externally pointing arrows, which represents the external efforts to align research informatics strategy across the institution.

  • OHSU Informatics Governance Group
  • Research Data Governance Committee 
  • Health Information Exchange Governance
  • Artificial Intelligence Governance Committee

Learn more about the Informatics Governance Group and Research Data Governance Committee on the Governance page

OHSU 2025 logo

OHSU completed a crowd-sourced strategic planning and prioritization process to generate an enterprise-wide strategic plan called OHSU 2025. The plan includes a significant investment in research informatics. The goal is to create seamless research informatics support for the entire research life cycle. The strategy and implementation of this effort are led by the Office of the CRIO. Additional resources on this effort are included below or you can visit the OHSU 2025 O2 page.

OHSU researchers can use the project intake form to submit OHSU 2025-related projects to the Research Data Governance Committee for approval and prioritization. Please contact the Office of the CRIO if you need assistance developing a project or would like to report a gap in services at OHSU. 

The Office of the CRIO helped establish research collaborations at OHSU for the following nationwide informatics initiatives and institutions:

NCATS National COVID Cohort Collaborative

Logo for the National Covid Cohort Collaborative. Purple virus ring with multi-colored hands in the middle.

The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) offers one of the largest collections of secure and deidentified clinical data in the United States for COVID-19 research.

Visit the N3C website to access the data. 

COVID and Cancer Consortium

Logo for COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium. Covid-19 virus shell shaped like a letter C with two additioanl letter C's nested inside of it with the number 19 to the right.

The COVID and Cancer Consortium (CCC19) is a consortium of over 120 cancer centers and other organizations who have come together to collect data about patients with cancer who have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Visit the CCC19 website to access the data.

OCHIN

Logo for OCHIN. White text on a dark grey background with a stripe of bright green under the grey box.

OCHIN is a nonprofit health care innovation center designed to provide knowledge solutions that promote quality, affordable health care for all.

Visit the OCHIN website to learn more.

Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics

Logo for the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (or OHDSI, pronounced "Odyssey") program. Dark blue letter next to a blue and orange square with white lines through it.

Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) is a multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary, open-source collaborative that brings out the value of health data through large-scale analytics.

Visit the OHDSI website for support.

Innovation

The Office of the CRIO has established innovative methods for enhancing research data capabilities by improving access to health data and utilizing health data for continuous improvement. Read more about these efforts below.

Icon representing enhanced capabilities. Four arrows pointing upwards, each longer than the next, surround by stars.

  • Guidelines for research use of Epic reporting tools 
  • Checklist for research involving human subjects 

Visit the Policy and Documentation page for more information.

The Office of the CRIO is generating new data sources at OHSU and improving access to existing sources including:

  • Death data 
  • Social determinants of health
  • Patient reported outcomes 

To access these data, please contact the research data concierge at researchdata@ohsu.edu

The Office of the CRIO developed a data quality dashboard to perform quality checks on data sources at OHSU.

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) offered the first working definition of an LHS as a system: “in which science, informatics, incentives, and culture are aligned for continuous improvement, innovation, and equity — with best practices and discovery seamlessly embedded in the delivery process, individuals and families as active participants in all elements, and new knowledge generated as an integral by-product of the delivery experience.”  The LHS initiative at OHSU brings together key cross-mission leaders to implement system-wide, rapid-cycle pragmatic trials that inform improvement in healthcare, research and education.  Focus areas include:

  • System of Leadership
  • Governance and Management
  • Quality and Safety Improvement
  • Community Building and Engagement
  • Data and Analytics
  • Research

Facilitating service

The Office of the CRIO has streamlined the research informatics user experience through tools, services, infrastructure and analysis support. Read more about these projects below.

Icon of a screwdriver and a wrench crossed over each other in the shape of an X. Representing the services and tools facilitated by the Chief Research Information Officer.

  • Established a process for advanced access to Epic databases
  • Access to Epic's Cosmos, a national collection of Epic EHR patient information that is de-identified and available for exploration via a user-friendly tool akin to SlicerDicer in Epic. Cosmos is available for both clinical and research use for comparisons across national patient populations.
  • Research Data Warehouse Self-Service Tool
  • University-wide flexible computing resources 

Research data website

The Research Data website is a space that consolidates information about research data at OHSU.

Research Data Education Resources Initiative

The Research Data Education Resources Initiative was proposed by the Research Data Governance Committee to provide enterprise-wide information about all resources (trainings, classes/courses, websites, groups/lists, etc.) that provide research data education. The Data Education Guide can be found at https://libguides.ohsu.edu/DataEducation.  Requestors can find education resources by type of offering, and search education resources by their topic of interest. For questions, please contact library@ohsu.libanswers.co

Review the full set of research informatics resources on the Tools and Services page.