The Brain-IT Group
was physically set up in March 1998
The idea for the group came from
group discussions arising during the 10th International
Symposium on Raised Intracranial Pressure and
Neuromonitoring in Brain Injury held in Williamsburg,
Virginia
on May 25th - 29th 1997.
To
find out more about the Group - Download our
Operational Strategy Document: Operational
Strategy
The site provides:
- Tools for multi-centre collection
of data from brain-injured
patients.
- Tools for multi-centre collection of
minute by minute monitoring data from brain-injured
patients.
- Access to a research group with similar
interests who may wish to collaborate with you on your
own project ideas.
- Access to a site with developing guidelines
and standards for the collection and analysis of data
from patients managed in neuro-intensive care.
- Access to a database useful for hypothesis
generation and the development, testing and validation
of new data analysis methodologies.
It is a project based site whereby any
group or individual with a project idea for assessment
of neuro-intensive care monitoring and methods can use
this
site as a research
tool. Typically this involves the following steps:
Prospective Data Collection Project
The typical process is:
- Submit a project outline to the
steering group,
the outline
will be
placed on
the
projects page and an email and forum facility provided
for polling interest in your project. The
role of the steering group is to only ensure that a similar
project is not already in progress.
- Use the BrainIT web-services to inform
other members about your project. Once a critical
mass of collaborators is found then the BrainIT group
statistician can be used, if required, to help
with the design and
power analysis of the project.
-
As principal investigator, you are
responsible for the writing of a project proposal
for obtaining
grant funding from local or international
level funding agencies to fund the project.
Any data collected as part of a BrainIT
project will become, at the completion of the study, the joint property of the BrainIT group
and may be used in hypothesis generation and retrospective analyses by the group to further research into
the improvement
of methods
for
monitoring brain injured patients. All data
stored in the joint database is fully anonymised
and contains no
information which will identify patients.
Database Analysis Project
Analysis and reporting of data from the grouped database
must conform to the Database
Access and Publishing Criteria. Each group has complete
and free access to their own data.
To access the joint database you must be a registered
member of the BrainIT group and your centre,
in any one year (January 1st->December
31st), has contributed
at least the minimum number of required sets of patient data (see: Database
Access and Publishing Criteria ) per year Membership
is free.
The typical process is:
- Access the database and either download all the patients or use the query wizard to select sub-groups of patient's data.
- Data can be used just for hypothesis generation or analysed with the intention of publication. If a formal analysis intended for publication is planned, then the PI must first confirm that a similar analysis is not already being planned by another member by visiting the projects and analyses web page. If a similar analysis is not being planned then the PI must write a one-page specific
and focused analysis plan and submit it via the web form tool found on the web-site. From that point onwards any other members wishing
to perform a similiar analysis should collaborate
with the group originally who proposed the idea.
- Before a completed analysis and manuscript is submitted for publication, the PI must upload the MS and a summary spreadsheet containing the raw data used in the final analysis which must include as the first column the Brain-IT codes identifying the patients used in the final analysis. This is required so that the steering group can confirm that only "Validated" data was used in the analysis. Manuscripts and data must be submitted 3-weeks prior to journal submission. This is to allow members who have contributed data to the database to make comments to the PI or to contribute to the analysis or manuscript should they wish. There is no requirement for the PI to respond to any of the comments, but should a member make a significant contribution to the design, analysis or writing of the manuscript, than it is the responsibility of the PI to ensure the member is a "Named Co-author" on the paper.
- It is the responsibility of the Steering group to
make sure that:
- Analysis proposals are focused and detailed. Where
similar analyses are already proposed, current
proposers will be encouraged to work with the group
first proposing the analysis.
- Analysis proposers complete the analysis
and publish the results in a timely fashion. If no results have been uploaded to the web-site within 12 months of downloading the data, the analysis plan will be removed from the site.
Current Projects and Planned database Analyses
There are a number of data collection projects in progress
and database analyses planned or underway. Go to the Projects link
for details.
- Go to the Core
Data link to learn more about the BrainIT core
dataset.
- Go to the Data
Collection link to learn more about how to access
software tools which incorporate the BrainIT core
dataset.
- Go to the Access
Criteria to learn more about the criteria for
accessing the BrainIT database.
Please tell your colleagues about this site. The
larger the membership
of the BrainIT group - the more efficient the group becomes at assessing
multiple devices and management methods.
further information or comments can be sent to ipiper@clinmed.gla.ac.uk
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