Frequently Asked Questions

For data security reasons, only computers on the Stanford network are permitted to run the Cohort Discovery and Chart Review tools. Please connect to the Stanford network with the UIT VPN and try again.

To switch between the two tools, use the dropdown menu in the center of the page.

Yes, you can set up your Chart Review to re-run the inclusion query on a regular schedule and notify you if any new patients have been added.

Chart Review data is refreshed each night, so the most frequent notification schedule we offer at no cost is once a day.

You can also use the "Add MRN" feature in an existing Chart Review to add patients by uploading a list of MRNs.

These issues typically arise when there is a mismatch between the IRB and Data Privacy Attestation (DPA) used to create the cohort and the IRB number used when completing a collaborator's add-on privacy attestation. 

To resolve, you can verify the IRB by clicking on the gear icon (“User Admin”) in the upper left of the chart review in question:

The IRB number will be displayed in the resulting pop-up window.

The each collaborator should double check that they have a valid add-on attestation for that IRB.

If you continue to experience difficulties, please contact us for assistance.

Yes, Research IT operates a service for real-time alerting. Please note however that unlike the Cohort Discovery and Chart Review tools, there is a cost associated with supporting research programs through the real time alerting system.

Please contact Research Technology to learn more.

In order to minimize the risk of inadvertent disclosure, STARR Tools will remove PHI using best-effort techniques from downloaded data. Learn more here.

To remove a saved cohort from your Chart Review dropdown, open the Admin panel for that cohort and click "Remove" next to your name or the name of the collaborator you wish to remove, then click "Save". If you have removed yourself, you will need to refresh your browser to see the updated list after you save the updated settings.

UIT offers classes in Data Science and Programming, and there are tutorials in Linkedin-learning available to SU staff.

Video recordings of STARR Tools workshops and and more are available on-demand.

STARR Tools can be used in many ways to support prospective research, including but not limited to:

Preparatory to Research Activities

The Cohort Discovery can prove to be an invaluable resource when writing grant proposals. By comparing patient counts over time you can rapidly build up a rich understanding of the types of clinical data available at Stanford on the patients of interest to your proposed investigation.

Patient Recruitment

The Cohort Discovery Tool in conjunction with the Chart Review Tool is purpose-built to find out how many Stanford patients match a particular clinical phenotype, and learn more about the patients of interest. De-identified chart review is available to make it easier for researchers to adhere to the principle of HIPAA Minimum Necessary. And fully identified chart review is also available to researchers with permission to work with PHI granted by the IRB and Privacy Office.

Ongoing Chart Review

The Chart Review tool can be configured to re-run the patient selection algorithm periodically, which is handy if you are reviewing patient charts as part of an ongoing study, either for eligibility assessment or research variable abstraction.

STARR Tools support retrospective research in many ways. For example:

Preparatory to Research Activities

The Cohort Discovery can prove to be an invaluable resource when writing grant proposals for retrospective studies of Stanford Medicine's patient population. By comparing patient counts over time you can rapidly build up a rich understanding of the types of clinical data available on the patient population of interest to your planned investigation.

Chart Review

The Cohort Discovery Tool in conjunction with the Chart Review Tool is purpose-built to find out how many Stanford patients match a particular clinical phenotype, and learn more about the patients of interest. De-identified chart review is available to make it easier for researchers to adhere to the principle of HIPAA Minimum Necessary. And fully identified chart review is also available to researchers with permission to work with PHI granted by the IRB and Privacy Office.

Data Download

The Chart Review tool has built-in data download, available on the patient list page.

Yes. Please contact us for assistance with setting this up.

These files tend to be quite large and can take several hours to generate. If after 24 hours they are still not showing up, please contact us for assistance.

That information is in STARR, but by policy is not made available directly to researchers.

For assistance with patient recruitment by Stanford's Honest Broker, please contact Spectrum's Research Participation Program at engageparticipants@stanford.edu or by submitting a DASHER help ticket. More information is available here.

There are two distinct set of approvals required before you can use an IRB to self-provision a cohort for chart review. After the Privacy Office approves your Data Privacy Attestation, there is typically a 1-2 week delay before the IRB can review and approve the protocol itself.

One business day after you have both Privacy and IRB approvals in place can your IRB number be used for self-service chart review. The one day delay is due to the fact that IRB data is only shared with STARR once a day.

There are several reasons why a patient or encounter might not be included in the STARR data:

• "High profile" patients such as public figures are excluded to protect their privacy.
• Some patients are in our system for administrative reasons but have had no encounters with Stanford Medicine.
• Some specific encounters are excluded from research use (currently, these include employee encounters under Workforce Health and Wellness, and encounters with some employer-sponsored clinics that are operated by SHC under contract).
• In rare cases, the information about a patient in the two systems (adult and children's) is inconsistent.  Those patients are not included in STARR Tools, to maximize our data integrity.

STARR Tools is the new name for STRIDE. STARR Tools is part of STARR portfolio. Learn more about STARR at https://starr.stanford.edu/.

Please contact us for all questions regarding STARR Tools. We will do our very best to answer your questions, but may refer to to other expert groups on campus if your questions fall outside our area of expertise, such as for example questions on compliance.