Integrating REDCap patient-reported outcomes with the HealtheIntent population health platform: proof of concept

OBJECTIVE: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are critical to drive patient-centered care and to understanding patients’ perspectives on their health status, quality of life, and the overall effectiveness of the care they receive. PROMs are increasingly being used in clinical and research settings, but the mechanisms to aggregate data from different systems can be cumbersome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: As part of an FDA Real-World Evidence demonstration project, we enriched routine care clinical data from our Cerner electronic health record (EHR) with PROMs collected using REDCap. We used SSIS, sFTP, and the REDCap Application Programming Interface to aggregate both data sources into the Cerner HealtheIntent Population Health Platform. RESULTS: We successfully built dashboards, reports, and datasets containing both REDCap and EHR data collected prospectively. DISCUSSION: This technically straightforward approach using commonly available clinical and research tools can be readily adopted and adapted by others to better integrate PROMs with clinical data sources.