- Dr. Marcel Dvorak
Scientific Director, RHSCIR and Combined Neurosurgical and
Orthopaedic Spine Program at Vancouver General Hospital

Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry (RHSCIR)

RHSCIR is an unprecedented, nation-wide project that is collecting critical information on SCI at 31 major Canadian acute care and rehabilitation hospitals across the country. RHSCIR will create a truly Canadian database of information about SCI that will benefit all Canadians with SCI and every professional involved in the SCI continuum of care far into the future. RHSCIR will be an invaluable resource for researchers and clinicians seeking to better understand SCI and the effectiveness of specific treatments, practices or programs for improving functional outcomes and quality of life after SCI.

Using strict privacy protocols, RHSCIR will ultimately collect core data sets from Canadians with SCI during their journey through acute care, rehabilitation and community reintegration. This data will be available to all participating researchers and institutions to engage people in relevant translational research studies, and help identify gaps and priority needs.

RHSCIR supports RHI's Translational Research Program and work towards meeting RHI's objectives. It will also provide the larger community of Canadian researchers, clinicians and health care professionals, as well governments, other funders, and industry with a powerful research and reporting tool. It will promote collaboration and research, demonstrate flexibility and adaptability in helping partners achieve their SCI information goals, ensure data quality, and remain current with changing trends and issues in health care management.

To date, the Registry has achieved the following:

• 31 participating hospitals, located in 15 cities and 9 provinces, encompassing all of Canada’s major SCI trauma units and rehabilitation hospitals. Three global sites are also in development.
• 2,000+ registered spinal cord injury patients, with an additional 60 new participants every month.
• A rigorous privacy and security framework has been developed and implemented. This framework has been accepted in all provinces, and the Ontario Privacy Commissioner has endorsed it as a best practice.
• A state-of-the-art, web-based data collection platform called the Rick Hansen Institute Global Research Platform. This platform will allow participating sites to efficiently capture data that incorporates international sci standards and data sets, including the International Standards for Neurological Classification for Spinal Cord Injury, which encompasses the asia Impairment Scale (AIS), the best practice for classifying neurological impairment.

To learn more about RHSCIR or how to get involved, please visit www.rickhansenregistry.org.