i2b2 Web Client Help

Version 1.3
Updated January 15, 2009

Introduction

i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) is an NIH-funded National Center for Biomedical Computing. The i2b2 Center is developing a scalable informatics framework that will bridge clinical research data and the vast data banks arising from basic science research in order to better understand the genetic bases of complex diseases. This knowledge will facilitate the design of targeted therapies for individual patients with diseases having genetic origins. The i2b2 web client is a web-based interface to the i2b2 Hive, which is a collection of modular i2b2 Cells that provide functionality such as project management, ontology management, access to clinical data repositories, workflow and data analysis.

Browser Requirements

The i2b2 web client has been tested on Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 2 and 3, and Safari 3. JavaScript must be enabled.

Implemented Cells

The i2b2 web client brings much of the functionality of the i2b2 desktop client to a web browser. However, due to limitations in browsers, there are certain features in the desktop client that cannot be reproduced exactly. This version of the i2b2 web client includes the following cells and views:

Project Management Cell

Login to the web client with the same username and password as the desktop client. If you have access to multiple projects, you can select the one you want to use when you login.

Ontology Cell

Use the Navigate Terms and Find Terms views to locate the medical concepts that you can query.

Clinical Research Chart Cell

The CRC cell stores patient data and consists of several views. The Query Tool view allows you to define a query. Drag and drop concepts from the Ontology Cell onto the Query Tool to build arbitrarily complex Boolean expressions. When you run a query, the results are displayed in the Query Status view, and the query definition is automatically added to the Previous Queries view. In the Previous Queries view, you can also drill down to view the results of past queries. To view a previous query definition, drag and drop its folder onto the Query Tool view.

Workplace Cell

New in i2b2 version 1.3 is a Workplace view, which gives you a place to save and organize concepts, query definitions, and query results. You have both a private place to store objects as well as a shared directory, which can be accessed by anyone in the project.

Analysis Tools

The i2b2 web client contains an Analysis Tools page that provides a collection of plugins that perform a variety of data analysis and visualization functions. The Plugins view lists the available plugins for your project. Click any plugin to load it into the Plugin Viewer. Some plugins contain additional help information for using that plugin.

About Us

The i2b2 web client was designed and built by Nick Benik from the Information Technology Department at Harvard Medical School and Griffin Weber, MD, PhD, who is the Chief Technology Officer of Harvard Medical School and a faculty member in the Division of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Biotechnology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. We thank the i2b2 team at Partners HealthCare System for their assistance in creating this web client. For additional information about i2b2, please contact Susanne Churchill at schurchill@partners.org.