Catch before a fall – an iPad application for Osteoporosis Risk Assessment

Abstract

The Virtual Research Integration Collaboration (VRIC) project provides a framework for the integration of basic science and clinical research. It enables the management of research lifecycles by integrating scientific approaches with everyday work practice in a virtual research environment (VRE). “Catch Before a Fall” (CBaF) is a clinical research project using VRIC. CBaF is aimed at calculating patients’ risk factor of developing osteoporosis and of having an osteoporosis related fracture within the next 10 years. Patients’ data are collected through CBaF and stored in data structures that match the VRIC architecture for automatic importing via a script written for that purpose. Data analysis is conducted in VRIC and the conclusion of the research process is followed up within that tool. In this paper, we describe how CBaF was designed to follow the VRIC framework, and discuss the technical development work of the application