Review Day for Data Collectors
On 28 May the biannual review day was held again at Stichting HIV Monitoring’s offices in Amsterdam. It was a full day with around 40 data collectors visiting from throughout the country. Important topics for the day were the expansion of the current data including hepatitis-related data, maintaining the quality of data and efficiency of finding and retrieving digital data from electronic patient files, such as laboratories (LabLink) and medication data, and making the SHM processes more efficient.
Address by the Director: Peter Reiss
Our new director, Peter Reiss, shared his vision of the future for Stichting HIV Monitoring. In his presentation he named both ageing within the cohort and hepatitis as possible areas for broadening the existing data collection.
Hepatitis Data Collection
Hepatitis data collection is an important topic. Since late last year there is now a team of specialized hepatitis collectors, the A-team, which has been responsible for the retrospective collection of hepatitis C data. This data collection is now up-to-date. (Thanks A-team!). Starting in the autumn, they will also be responsible for the retrospective collection of hepatitis B data.
The performance of the A-team was shown in a presentation by research analyst, Colette Smit, where she outlined the preliminary results of the data collection set.
Anna Jansen, data monitor, concluded the morning with the introduction of the new screens for liver diagnostics that will be used from now on in regular data collection.
Introduction of Helpdesk
Data monitor, Shula Grivell gave an introduction to the new helpdesk. This allows a faster and more direct handling of practical and content-related questions from HIV treatment teams on subjects from protocol to data management. The email address for the new helpdesk is HelpdeskSHM.data@amc.nl.
Data management / LabLink Update
An update on data management was given by Mariska Hillebregt, coordinator data management, followed by an update on LabLink by Viola Kimmel, data monitor.
Mariska outlined that an investigation has been launched to look into the problems sometimes encountered when using Report Builder. We hope that these issues will be resolved shortly. In addition, as many hospitals migrate to Windows 7 we have noticed that there are sometimes problems with Oracle. In relation to both these issues, please send us notifications of problems you have observed so that they can be addressed. Other points covered where that hepatitis data for hospitals is now also visible in Report Builder and the data dictionary is available again. In addition, new site management tables are available.
During her presentation Viola explained that 8 hospitals are now connected to LabLink, the automated link that allows data from various hospital computer systems to be entered directly and anonymously in the SHM database. Another four hospitals are also progressing with the implementation of LabLink. In April, the first regular checks for LabLink were carried out. Also, protocols for data collectors and monitors in hospitals with LabLink are now available on the Oracle launch page.
Data Collection Quiz
For the first time, a quiz was organized by data monitors Rosalie van den Boogaard and Anna Lang. Voting cards were used by participants to indicate their preferred answer. The quiz was well received and well answered. On average, 77% of the questions were answered correctly by the attendees!
Quality of Care
Esther Engelhard, recently started as a PhD candidate, talked about her research on quality of care. During her presentation she focused on some sites where she gains support from data collectors to support from the survey she is conducting. After some practical questions and answers she nicely ended the Review Day.
Shula Grivell and Nienke Wijnstok contributed to this article.