Q&A with the RMU

What’s the most requested service you provide to researchers? 

RMU Staff:  Joe Fraser, Chris Theriault,
Daniela Meier, Olga Kits & Steve Doucette

Researchers often contact the RMU for database support and biostatistical consulting. Typically, these two services go hand in hand as our database specialists know very well how the data needs to be laid out in a database, in order to create an analytical dataset that can be easily imported into a statistical software program. Over the last year, we have seen increases in requests for qualitative methods support and health economic consulting. We anticipate this trend to continue. More researchers are interested in a health economic evaluation of their intervention in order to assess additional benefits beyond immediate patient outcomes. This is an important consideration from a healthcare system perspective.

What’s the newest thing at the RMU? 

The newest support available to researchers via the RMU is REDCap. REDCap, is a free, secure, web-based application for building and managing online surveys and databases for research studies. It was introduced at the NSHA earlier this year and is available to all NSHA-affiliated researchers. REDCap presents a much more sophisticated option for high quality and secure data capture compared to commonly used products like Microsoft Excel or Access. To date, 2537 Institutions in 116 countries utilize it, which opens up possibilities for multi-centred research studies in Canada and beyond. Databases can be quickly developed and customized based on a study’s needs. RMU database specialists serve as REDCap administrators and oversee the creation of projects as well as management of users. The RMU will be offering two workshops in the near future to introduce researchers and research staff to REDCap to explore how it could benefit their research studies. Stay tuned for the announcements.

What is something researchers may not know about the RMU? 

One of the most common misperceptions about the RMU is that we charge for all of our services. While we do charge for some of our services, there is a significant number of services that we provide for free. They include the one-hour initial consult, all preparatory work required for the duration of a project, support for research design and methods refinement, initial support in the context of a grant application and development of Statement of Work. We encourage researchers to look for funding opportunities and include our services in their budgets in consultation with our consultants. You can find more specific information about our services on our website. http://www.cdha.nshealth.ca/rmu 

Researcher Profile- Dr. James Robar

What is your current research project?  

Dr. James Robar

I am involved in several research projects with the common theme of improving radiation therapy or radiosurgery.   One recent effort is the development of a new technology to detect a patient’s body position during the delivery of high-energy x-ray beams, in order to monitor and ensure accuracy of treatment. Right now, my research team is focusing on stereotactic radiosurgery—a non-invasive treatment of benign or malignant tumours, as well as of conditions such as arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) or trigeminal neuralgia.  The technology that we are developing allows us to read out the patient’s head position in three dimensions, 200 times per second and with sub-millimetre precision.  If the patient moves, we will know, and can interrupt treatment.  The technology uses an array of novel capacitive sensors.

How did you become interested in your research topic? 

A few years ago, I came across a black paint that was highly electrically conductive.  You could apply a thin layer to virtually any material, and then use the painted region, for example, as a switch by touching it.  But when I experimented further, I realized that it was detecting the approach of my hand long before it had made contact, and with high sensitivity.  This is basic physics!  I then 3D-printed a ring-shaped prototype that could, for example, be placed around a patient’s head.  The detector element was very thin, so it wouldn’t disturb the incoming radiation beams. At the time, my five-year-old Keira helped me paint on the eight detectors.  With some basic data acquisition and math (mostly by me, not Keira), pretty soon we were creating doodles on a monitor by waving our hands in the air.  It was fun and proved the concept. 

What has been unexpected about your findings so far? 

Since the human body allows a high capacitance, but plastic does not, the detector can effectively “see through” an immobilization mask that the patient may be wearing for treatment.  This wasn’t a property that we originally thought about, but it is exactly what we want.  It also provides a key competitive advantage – other real-time approaches have to monitor the patient’s skin, which gives a poor surrogate for the position of a brain tumour.

What’s innovative about your research? 

Nobody has built a system like this before, to our knowledge.  With the help of Dalhousie ILI, we filed a patent. Now, through collaboration with our industry partner Brainlab AG and with support from ACOA, we are working on this technology to bring the tech to patients worldwide.

One word that best describes how you work: matinal

What technology can’t you live without?  The GPS chart plotter on my sailboat.  It keeps me on target.

How do you envision your research benefiting the “public at large”?

We foresee all of our research projects as improving outcomes for patients, increasing efficiency of care, or improving the patient experience.  Also, by doing the R&D within a graduate program, we educate many medical physics trainees – who will be the next generation of clinical physicists and innovators.

Fall Research Communications Survey- Key Findings

Thank you to those who participated in our Communications Survey. 
We had 112 responses! 

Key findings: 

• 60% felt that they were “well informed” or “fully informed”; add the neutral response of “adequately informed” and we have an 87% satisfaction rate!

• Our website was the highest ranked DIGITAL tool, with emails from Michelle coming in 2nd

• This newsletter was the highest ranked PRINT tool- but many of you said that you would prefer more online communications

• Knowing about Education and Funding opportunities as soon as they were available was ranked high; self service was ranked 2nd

We used REDCap for our survey, please check it out at: 
http://www.cdha.nshealth.ca/REDCap