Answer
To pull data from Epic into REDCap, the REDCap fields must be configured correctly for the type of data Epic will provide. Guidelines:
- Use 'Text Box (Short Text, Number, Date/Time...)', with no validation for most fields. This will handle most text and numeric values, such as name, MRN, and lab values.
- For date/datetime fields, such as date of birth or appointment dates, one of these two validations must be used: Date (Y-M-D) or Datetime (Y-M-D H:M).
- Use 'Notes Box (Paragraph Text)' for clinical notes, procedure notes and medications (anything with extensive text). (All medications will end up in a single long text box.)
- Enhanced Formatting: Use the "@RICHTEXT" action tag to activate rich text capabilities, allowing HTML formatting to preserve the original presentation of the notes.
- Optimal Alignment: Set the alignment to "Left / Horizontal (LH)" to facilitate consistent and professional document appearance.
- Use a 'Yes - No' field to code for the "is_deceased?' field in Epic.
- Gender, sex, race and ethnicity fields can be configured as either radio buttons ('Multiple Choice - Radio Buttons (Single Answer)' or drop-down lists ('Multiple Choice - Drop-down List (Single Answer)'). However, these fields must be coded using the same raw values (option numbers) used in Epic. Please use the values indicated in the attached Excel file below for these fields.
- EPIC allows 'race' and 'ethnicity' to be multi-selected; users may choose 1 or more options to describe their heritage. However, REDCap is limited to only pulling in the first value provided by Epic. Thus, race and ethnicity data may be incomplete in REDCap.
- There is a 'race-all-codes' option in Epic that may be used instead; it must be set up in REDCap as a text field, and it will pull a pipe-delimited list of race values (e.g., 2054-5|2106-3).
Example of Epic codes:
gender F, Female M, Male UNK, Unknown
See also:
CDIS/Epic Connectivity
available_epic_fields_r4.xlsx247.46 KB
