After completing the login process and before you can do anything else in the application, you must identify the reason you are using the application. Since patient information is stored in the CCR database, HIPAA regulations require the application to audit who accessed the information and for what reason. CCR asks for this information on the Welcome to HCI Cancer Clinical Research window which appears as soon as the application starts. To respond to this dialog:

1. Select the cancer group which is related to your purpose for accessing the CCR database in the Cancer Group drop-down field.

The only cancer groups which will show up as options in the Cancer Group drop-down field are those to which you belong — see also Administering Cancer Group Users. (This means that for most people there will only be one option available — the one cancer group they are associated with.) If your cancer group does not appear as an option in this field, contact your cancer group administrator.

The Collaborating Site field is a recent addition to the Session Purpose process. It was added because other sites outside of the Huntsman Cancer Institute have begun using CCR for their own clinical and research purposes. You may only access data that belongs to your own site. It will be extremely rare for anyone to have access to more than one site's data, so you will probably only have one option here that is already selected.

2. Select the reason for accessing the CCR application from the Session Purpose drop-down list. See Session Purposes — Security Restrictions for a description of the possible session purposes and the data access restrictions associated with each session purpose.

3. If your purpose is Research/Study, select the name of the research project in the Study drop-down list.

4. If you want to restrict your access so that the information displayed is de-identified (in other words, you will not see any patient names, MRN numbers or any other specific information that might reveal the identity of the patient in question), click on the De-Identified? checkbox so that the box is checked.

If you check the De-Identified? checkbox, all identifying information for all records will be supressed and you will not be able to perform searches on any fields that contain that information, regardless of your session purpose. Your indicated session purpose and/or security permissions may automatically restrict your access so that it is de-identified, regardless of whether you mark the De-Identified? checkbox or not. See Restrictions on Searches and Security in CCR.

5. Click the Continue button. The audit will mark your access as entered, the Welcome to HCI Cancer Clinical Research window will close and the CCR desktop, including the CCR Quick Access Toolbar will appear, giving you access to the appropriate data — see The Cancer Clinical Research Desktop Environment.

If you click the Cancel button next to the Continue button, the application will simply close.

While you are working in the application, the session purpose information entered is displayed in the top portion of the CCR Quick Access toolbar on the left side of the application desktop — see The Cancer Clinical Research Access Toolbar.

If your purpose changes as you are working with the application, you should record this change — see Changing the Session Purpose.