Working Effectively with the Biostatistics Analysis Center
This outline provides some suggestions to facilitate communication within a project team composed of faculty investigators, faculty biostatisticians and Biostatistics Analysis Center (BAC) staff with the goal of maintaining an efficient and collegial relationship.
- Establish an overall project timeline early in the collaboration
- Last-minute requests are difficult for everyone and cannot always be accommodated. It is often a good idea to create a project-specific calendar in advance, with dates for grant deadlines, abstracts for papers, and the like.
- You are encouraged to involve the BAC in the design and implementation phases of the study. In-depth knowledge by the BAC of study background, BAC participation in CRF design, and BAC involvement with defining data layout can greatly reduce the time needed to complete analysis.
- BAC staff member(s), and perhaps the BECC/BAC Managing Director, should be informed as far in advance as possible of any deadlines requiring analysis due to abstracts, grant renewals, or DSMB or external advisory meetings.
- The BAC always strives to meet its deadlines; however, it generally takes weeks to months to conduct most analyses. This is due to the meticulous attention necessary to clean and format the data, perform an appropriate and complete analysis, and adhere to BAC documentation requirements.
- Communicate often, clearly, and with a purpose
- Projects run more smoothly when there is frequent, clear, and focused communication, which requires a strong commitment from faculty investigators, faculty biostatisticians, and BAC staff.
- It is the BAC staff member's responsibility to update the investigator regarding the requested analysis, but intervals between communications may vary. You are encouraged to communicate your preference for status report frequency (e.g., weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) with the BAC staff member(s) assigned to your project.
- In general, if you experience any concerns with individual BAC staff members, please first attempt to communicate directly with the staff member. If your concerns are not resolved, please contact the BECC/BAC Managing Director.
- Clarify work expectations in advance
- The faculty biostatistician is often best positioned to understand both investigator and BAC perspectives of task expectations, and is expected to work with the investigator in prioritizing BAC activities.
- BAC staff members have a diverse background, both in terms of formal training and experience. If your study requires particular skills, such as programming in R, SPSS or Stata, please contact the BECC/BAC Managing Director to fulfill your specialized need.
- Not all analyses are created equal. The BAC staff and faculty biostatistician will try to keep the investigator apprised of the amount of work or time it will take to perform specific analyses, striving to communicate the implications of any analyses requested.
- Since the BAC is required to be revenue neutral, some intervention may be needed if project requirements exceed the contracted Scope of Work.
- Work from an analysis plan or to-do list
- The faculty investigator and biostatistician along with BAC staff must work together from an established analysis plan. This plan targets the collaborative work toward publication, and can be produced by any combination of the investigator, faculty statistician, and BAC staff member(s). All parties should retain a copy of the analysis plan regardless of who is responsible for its development. Sometimes a plan can be as simple as an email confirming the next steps in the analysis.
- To help the analysis run more smoothly, the analysis plan should specifically describe all pertinent goals of the study. This will help the BAC statistician understand where the study or paper is headed.
- All parties should leave any joint meeting with a clear idea of who is responsible for each action item arising from that meeting. We recommend circulating a written to-do list to all relevant members of the study group.
