All resource requests must be approved by the director of the Medical Informatics Core, who sits on the Resource Allocation Committee, as to the appropriateness of their sample sizes. SPIS is a centralized database management system which contains over 500 data elements and features a Windows user interface. The Medical Informatics Core manages development of SPIS by translating investigator needs into system design and modification requests. Administration and support of the SPIS is also performed by the Medical Informatics Core. Statistical analysis and support is another feature of the Medical Informatics Core.
Many investigators make use of such assistance for data analysis and interpretation.
Support is provided ini different forms, at the researchers request. Assistance in statistical test selection may be all that is needed for a particular investigator. Other investigators require complete experimental design work along with statistical testing and interpretation. The Core is constantly expanding in analytical techniques. In addition to traditional statistical analyses, computational methods such as Markov models, neural networks, and decision tree construction are performed routinely.