Clinical Research Informatics Service (CRIS)

The Clinical Research Informatics Service (CRIS) provides honest broker services for University of Pittsburgh faculty (herein defined as "requester"). An honest broker serves as a disinterested intermediary between the researcher and the individual whose data are being studied. The use of the honest broker ensures that the investigator is not interacting with those individuals nor recording any identifiable information about them. CRIS can also assist with identification of anonymized potential research subjects or records using Medical Archival Retrieval System (MARS).

CRIS is a certified honest broker as defined by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board (IRB) and has a business associate agreement in effect with UPMC. CRIS staff is experienced in areas of data extraction for use in studies of outcomes management, cost-effectiveness, and quality improvement. The director of CRIS devoted eleven years to the development and implementation of MARS, the primary data repository currently in use at UPMC. One of the service's primary goals is to make the vast clinical data sources at UPMC available for Pitt faculty in an integrated and timely fashion and in accordance with government and institutional regulations.