Design and implementation of an integrated data model to support clinical and translational research administration

Both academic medical centers and biomedical research sponsors need to understand impact of scientific funding to determine value. For the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs, tracking research activities can be complex, often involving multiple institutions and continually changing federal reporting requirements. Existing research administrative systems are institution-specific and tend to focus only on parts of a greater whole. The goal of this case report is to describe a comprehensive data model that addresses this gap.

Web-based Center Administrative Management Program (WebCAMP) has been developed over a period of over 15 years in the context of CTSA hubs, with the recent addition of T32 programs. Its data model centers around the key concepts of people, projects, resources (inputs), and outcomes (outputs).

The WebCAMP data model and associated toolset for biomedical research administration integrates multiple components of the research enterprise, has been used by our CTSA hub for over 15 years and has been adopted by more than 20 other CTSA hubs.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is among the first to describe a comprehensive data model for biomedical research administration. Opportunities for future work include improved grant tracking through the development of a universal identifier that spans public and private funders, and a more generic outcomes tracking model able to rapidly incorporate new outcome types.

We propose that the WebCAMP data model, or a derivative of it, could serve as a future standard for research administrative data warehousing.