HERCe Services

The Health Effectiveness Research Center (HERCe) focuses on comparing which health treatments and strategies work best and whether this varies by factors such as severity or number of health conditions. It is a center for research, learning, and education that is comprised of epidemiologists, economists, biostatisticians, clinicians, database specialists, geographers, and graduate students from colleges and departments across campus.

The center has a dedicated secure server that enables researchers and collaborators to access and analyze confidential information. The server currently hosts SAS, R / R Studio, Python, and Stata, and additional software can be added to meet investigator needs. The server currently hosts 25 different projects representing 12 principal investigators and 39 users.

Click to the topics below to learn more information on what services we can off for your research. Contact us at cph-herce@uiowa.edu to learn more or to set up a consult on working with our faculty, staff and resources.

Study Design and Analyses

Prospective studies

  • Population-based sampling
  • Development of study instruments, including questionnaire and form design
  • Case tracking and participant tracking databases
  • Recruitment and data collection protocol development
  • Hire and manage student employees to enroll subjects and collect data
  • Follow-up strategies to increase response rates
  • Navigating PCORnet for prospective intervention studies and pragmatic trials
  • Project coordination for mission-aligned studies
  • Facilitate specimen collection and storage

Secondary data studies

  • Conceptualization and measurement of preventive care and treatments from retrospective data
  • Analytic case definitions
  • Outcome definitions
  • Computable phenotypes
  • Methodologies for addressing treatment selection bias including instrumental variables and direct statistical and design control for confounding
  • Analysis of complex sample surveys and longitudinal data
  • Data linkage and application of encryption methodologies to maintain confidentiality

Expertise with large healthcare databases

  • Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked databases (National Cancer Institute) for the Population Research Core (Pop RC)
  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services databases: Chronic Conditions Warehouse (CCW), Medicare Standard Analytical Files, Medicaid
  • Truven Marketscan
  • UI Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) Clinical Data Research Warehouse (CRDW)
  • PCORnet / Greater Plains Collaborative
  • GROUSE (Greater Plains Collaborative Reusable Observable Unified Study Environment)
  • Cancer Rapid Cycle Project (EMR data linked to Medicare and cancer registry data)

Custom Data Collection and Data Management

  • TeleForm (optical scan software)
  • Custom forms, reports and connectivity
  • Custom data structure design and database management
  • Iowa Personal Health Record (web app for delivering behavioral and clinical interventions)