Empowering the biomedical research community: Innovative SAS deployment on the All of Us Researcher Workbench

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2024 Dec 1;31(12):2994-3000. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocae216.

Abstract

Objectives: The All of Us Research Program is a precision medicine initiative aimed at establishing a vast, diverse biomedical database accessible through a cloud-based data analysis platform, the Researcher Workbench (RW). Our goal was to empower the research community by co-designing the implementation of SAS in the RW alongside researchers to enable broader use of All of Us data.

Materials and methods: Researchers from various fields and with different SAS experience levels participated in co-designing the SAS implementation through user experience interviews.

Results: Feedback and lessons learned from user testing informed the final design of the SAS application.

Discussion: The co-design approach is critical for reducing technical barriers, broadening All of Us data use, and enhancing the user experience for data analysis on the RW.

Conclusion: Our co-design approach successfully tailored the implementation of the SAS application to researchers' needs. This approach may inform future software implementations on the RW.

Keywords: data analysis; data ecosystem; diversity; precision medicine; software.

MeSH terms

  • Biomedical Research* / organization & administration
  • Cloud Computing
  • Databases, Factual
  • Humans
  • Precision Medicine
  • Research Personnel
  • Software
  • United States