How to Get Patient Counts for Research

Why get patient counts? Examples:

  • Obtain counts for a specific cohort of patients, for a grant, sample size calculation, study feasibility, hypothesis generation
  • Determine how many patient have been discharged from the hospital by year with COPD as one of the discharge diagnoses

No data set is delivered for counts.

Your options:

  • De-identified Data Applications
    • These include both point-and-click (RDB) and programmable options (De-identified Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW), flat files).
  • Information Commons
    • Clinical data at scale and on high performance compute environment (HPC)
    • An environment suited to pattern recognition and machine learning (Apache Spark)
    • Currently provides de-identified structured data (RDB).  De-identified images and de-identified clinical notes coming soon
  • Data Extraction Consultation
    • Get guidance from a UCSF expert who will help you define the data you need and clarify the data that is available.
    • After the initial free hour, recharge fees will apply.
    • UC Health data may be requested, but processing time can be lengthy.
  • Sample Size Calculators
    • Determine how many subjects to include in your study
    • Power calculations, and more

Compliance Requirements

IRB approval and RAE not required

Working with clinical data? Preparation is key.

Be ready with adequate computing capabilities and tools for:

Use the APeX Pick List  or the ZSFG Pick List (Large Excel files via UCSF Box) to identify variables for your research and to define your cohort.

  • Diagnoses
  • Meds
  • Labs
  • Procedures
  • Flowsheet
  • Departments
  • Smart Data Elements