BC Health Data Platform Pioneer: Victor Espinosa and REDCap

 

While not officially a member of the staff team, Victor Espinosa’s accomplishments are noticeable in most of the work of the overall BC AHSN organization, as well as in the health research landscape across the province.

Formerly at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHRI) and currently the Manager for Research Informatics and Statistics at Island Health, Victor promotes and supports good data practices in research, quality improvement and health services management projects throughout British Columbia.

As one of his responsibilities at Island Health, Victor has been instrumental in establishing a REDCap hub (or in technical parlance, an “instance”) for BC AHSN.

“My main tool for a long time has been REDCap, a very powerful electronic data platform that facilitates and empowers end-users in their journey to collect-top quality data,” he wrote recently in an email interview.

To bring more exposure of the benefits of REDCap to BC researchers, the International REDCap Conference, or “REDCapCon,” will be held this September in Vancouver. Victor is one of the host chairs; there will be an additional session for Canadian administrators, which will reflect the spirit of collaboration promoted within BC AHSN.

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) was created by a project team at Vanderbilt University. It’s now available internationally (713,000 projects at 3,500 institutions in 130 countries) and is effectively used to support data collection for multitudes of research studies and operations.

“At the BC Children’s Hospital, we hosted one of the first two REDCap installations across Canada,” he continued. “Now, there are more than 120 institutions using REDCap in this country.”

To extend the benefits of having a professional (and affordable) tool like REDCap to different research institutions in British Columbia and their research teams, Victor co-led the effort to create and set up a new hub in BC through the BC AHSN umbrella (incorporating the work of Clinical Trials BC and the BC SUPPORT Unit).

“Victor is a REDCap guru…However, he’s very modest about his extensive contributions and is always cheerful, helpful and willing to help anybody on a research or clinical trial project.” – Jean Smart, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Officer, Clinical Trials BC

BC AHSN’s REDCap instance is maintained by a multi-organizational group.

“There’s a team of experts and REDCap managers that collaborates to support the BC AHSN REDCap instance,” Victor said. “We meet frequently to coordinate our efforts and design the strategy to expand the REDCap use.”

This collaborative team is comprised of representatives from Population Data BC (PopData), the University of British Columbia (UBC), The Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation (C2E2), the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHRI) and Island Health.

“PopData hosts the REDCap installation and we [Island Health] are co-leaders of this initiative with the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHRI),” he continued.

Thanks to the efforts of Victor and his team, REDCap, which has been available to all BC researchers since late 2017, is hosting dozens of projects from all parts of the province and from many different institutions.

“I’m confident about the future of Health Science and Services by sharing data, which is a big asset. BC AHSN, by its nature, is a key player to make this happen among academic institutions working with the government.”

“We’re already hosting almost 30 research projects at BC AHSN’s REDCap [hub] and about half of them are clinical research studies or trials [the other half being for patient-oriented research studies through the BC SUPPORT Unit], reflecting the need we are filling from the beginning of our activities,” Victor observed. “[Clinical research] is an area where we’re constantly working to improve and be well documented.”

Jean Smart, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Officer at Clinical Trials BC, is a big fan of Victor’s efforts and the wide-ranging effect of his work in data.

“Victor is a REDCap guru,” she said. “He’s even written seven specific modules for REDCap which were incorporated by Vanderbilt into the REDCap suite. He’s been involved in several international data projects. However, he’s very modest about his extensive contributions and is always cheerful, helpful and willing to help anybody on a research or clinical trial project.”

“I truly believe that the future is in collaboration. We’re not only working in an efficient way saving taxpayers’ dollars, but enabling [research] teams with opportunities not available until now.”

Victor sees the future of BC AHSN, from a data platform perspective as one filled with greater collaboration, where provincial data platforms can transcend geographical distance and reduce redundancies by collaborating and sharing.

“I’m confident about the future of Health Science and Services by sharing data, which is a big asset,” he wrote. “BC AHSN, by its nature, is a key player to make this happen among academic institutions working with the government.

“I foresee, in the near-future, larger and multi-site research studies happening in British Columbia. And we’ll be able to become more efficient by scale savings and by sharing resources and solutions. This is not a small thing when we all are committed to provide the best health care services and to put innovation at work as quickly as possible.”

“At the BC Children’s Hospital, we hosted one of the first two REDCap installations across Canada. Now, there are more than 120 institutions using REDCap in this country.”

To bring more exposure of the benefits of REDCap to BC researchers, the International REDCap Conference, or “REDCapCon,” will be held this September in Vancouver. Unsurprisingly, as one of the pioneers of the platform in this province, Victor is one of the host chairs.

This annual event, which brings together REDCap administrators from all over the world, will be held outside the US for the first time ever. An attendance of over 300 participants is expected.

BC participants will be key voices in an additional session for Canadian administrators, which Victor knows will reflect the spirit of collaboration promoted within BC AHSN.

In the meantime, REDCap continues to grow. The multi-stakeholder project team continues to expand their services, and more and more research teams approach them for getting data management help.

“I truly believe that the future is in collaboration,” Victor concluded. “We’re not only working in an efficient way saving taxpayers’ dollars, but enabling teams with opportunities not available until now.”

• For more information about REDCap, please visit https://projectredcap.org/.
• If you’re a BC researcher and want to use REDCap, visit https://bcsupportunit.ca/redcap.