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Summary

epiCentre is a desktop application for measuring patient reported outcomes for those experiencing persistent pain. Patients send their referrals to clinical/data entry staff, who input the patient details into epiCentre. A questionnaire is generated for the patient and sent to them to complete online via a REDCap instance at UOW, or via a paper form. The patient fills out the questionnaire and staff either tell epiCentre to refresh it's questionnaire data (in the case of questionnaires done online) or manually enter the data into epiCentre (in the case of questionnaires done on paper forms). The workflow of epiCentre allows staff to keep track of where a patient is in their treatment cycle and generate new questionnaires where appropriate. Every 6 months, staff will extract data from epiCentre via an in-built menu and send it to ePPOC via a secure web portal. ePPOC staff will use that information to measure patient outcomes and to compare them against other Australasian services.

Requirements

epiCentre will work on a Windows machine running Windows Vista or newer. It also requires .Net Framework 4.6.

Data Security

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Overview of the System


AHSRI will implement 2 systems for managing ePPOC data:

  • Data Collection System: This is the system we will describe in this document. It consists of a desktop application (called epiCentre) and a web application (called REDCap). These systems are integrated and will be used for data entry and reporting of Patient, Episode, Pathway, Service and Questionnaire information.

  • Data Collation System: This system will allow AHSRI to collate, store and manage the de-identified data. It will be hosted and operated by AHSRI and will not require any installation at the hospitals.

The purpose of this document is to outline the requirements and design of the Data Collection System.

The Data Collection system can be divided in 2 components:

  • epiCentre - desktop application: This application will allow a health specialist to enter and report on data relating to Patient, Episode, Pathway and Services provided, and will provide integration with REDCap, the online system used for managing patient questionnaires.

  • REDCap server: REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) allows users to build and manage online questionnaires and databases quickly and securely. REDCap is used in numerous projects all around the world. We will use REDC

    • ap to securely manage and serve forms to be filled online by patients or health professionals.

    The following diagram explains how the components of the Data Collection system work together:


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Technical Requirements

Minimum Requirements and Installation Scenarios:

The Data Collection system will be a desktop application installed on site at hospitals. It will be written using the industry standard Microsoft.NET platform. This means that it will be written and tested to work on any Windows PC running Windows 10. Windows 10 has the .NET framework pre-requisite installed by default.

The system will use the industry standard Microsoft SQL Server as a database back-end for the desktop application. If the client site already has a SQL Server this can be used, otherwise SQL Server Express can be used – this is a free version of MS SQL Server that allows up to 5 machines to connect to a database.

Currently supported versions are:

  • SQL Server
    o 2012 SP4, Extended Security Updates 08/07/2025 – Not recommended
    o 2014 SP3 CU4, Security Support 09/07/2024 – Not recommended
    o 2016 SP3, Security Support 14/07/2026 – Not recommended
    o 2017 CU31, Security Support 12/18/2027 – Not recommended
    o 2019 CU18, Active Support 07/01/2025 – Recommended, Preferred
    o 2022, Active Support 11/01/2033 - Recommended, Preferred

  • SQL Server Express
    o 2014, Extended Support 09/07/2024 – Not recommended
    o 2016, Extended Support 14/07/2026 – Not recommended
    o 2017, Extended Support 12/10/2027 – Not recommended
    o 2019, Mainstream Support 01/07/2025, Recommended


Older operating system or SQL server versions may be compatible with epiCentre but are not recommended due to the increased security risk as they are not patched by the vendor. Please check current support status for your operating system and SQL server at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/.

Minimum Hardware and Software Requirements for Client Machines:

Operating System: Windows 10 (1507 LTS, 1607 LTS,1809 LTS, 21H2 1.0.19044+)

  • RAM: 2gb

  • Processor: no specific requirement

  • Minimum Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768

  • Optional software dependency:
    o Acrobat PDF reader
    o Microsoft Word
    o Microsoft Excel
    o Microsoft Outlook

Installation size and data storage requirements

Using 2.2.6.1 of epiCentre as a measure, epiCentre takes up about ~145MB on a computer.


See the below table for estimated database sizing:

Table

Estimated records (per patient)

Size (KB per record)

Total size (KB per patient)

Patient

1

.23

.23

Episode

3

.16

.48

Pathway

9 (3 per episode)

.08

.72

Service Event

30 (10 per episode)

.08

2.4

Questionnaire

15 (5 per episode)

.76

11.4

Total



15.23KB per patient


If we assume a system of 1000 patients, that's ~15MB, not including any overhead involved in SQL creation, nor the relatively static tables within epiCentre (code sets, users, facility information, etc).

Supported Installation Scenarios

We will support 3 possible scenarios for installation:

  1. The installation site does not have a SQL Server, and only a single machine needs access to the application.

SQL Server Express can be installed on the client machine.

The application can be installed on the client machine and configured to use the SQL Server Express instance on the client machine.

This will require no special network or firewall configuration for communication with database.

  1. The installation site does not have a SQL Server, and more than one machine needs access to the application.

SQL Server Express can be installed on one of the client machines, or on an existing hospital server, as

epiCentre - System Overview – v2.2 Page 4 of 8

deemed appropriate by hospital IT policy. The database could also be hosted by any SQL cloud provider as deemed appropriate by hospital IT policy.

The application will be installed on desktop machines and configured to use the SQL Server instance on the client machine or server on which it is installed.

This will require the SQL Server port to be opened on the client machine or server on which the SQL Server instance is installed.

  1. The installation site already has a SQL Server.
    The database can be hosted on the existing SQL Server, with security configured to the satisfaction of hospital IT policy.
    The application will be installed on desktop machines and configured to use the existing SQL Server as the common database.
    This will require the SQL Server to be directly accessible to client machines. If that is a problem for security policy, please see options 1 and 2.

Installation

For information on installation, please see New install

Migration

For more information about migration Migrating the epiCentre database from one SQL instance to another - epiCentre Knowledge Base - AHSRI (atlassian.net)

Data Security

For information on data security, please see epiCentre and your data.

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