REDCap is a secure, low-cost, online data capture system designed and developed for clinical research. The features of REDCap help to reduce the effort and costs involved in collecting and storing clinical data.
Using REDCap, teams can build electronic forms quickly and with little or no support from Data Management teams.  Research data can be collected directly from patients via online surveys or entered by health professionals and researchers accessing the Health and Social Care Network. Generic or participant-specific surveys can be sent at designated time-intervals and where an Internet connection is unavailable, data can be captured offline through the REDCap mobile app.

The REDCap system supports the whole data lifecycle – data collection, validation, question filtering, reporting and storage. In addition, REDCap provides automated export procedures for downloading data as to common statistical packages (Stata, SPSS, SAS, R) or as a CSV/XML file.  REDCap data is stored behind the UHBW firewall.

REDCap uses a high availability MariaDB server managed by University Hospital Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust IT Services and maintained in line with their policies regarding security, resilience and backups. REDCap uses a combination of Single Sing On and Table Based username and password security, and a granular security model so users can only access data and functionality specifically assigned to them. REDCap maintains an audit trail of all actions including data changes made to the system. Access to the system is via an encrypted SSL website. Datasets can be exported in a variety of formats (csv, R, XML, Stata) for long term storage and analyses. Datasets can be easily de-identified for sharing.

As REDCap is hosted behind the UHBW firewall, both identifiable and clinical data can be stored in the system.

Click here for information on the costs associated with using REDCap at the UHBW NHS Foundation Trust.