Clinical Data Day in Erlangen
The Medical Valley Europäische Metropolregion Nürnberg and d.hip (Digital Health Innovation Platform) had organized a clinical data day on Wednesday, December 18th 2019 in Erlangen. Ulli Prokosch and Detlef Kraska used this opportunity to present the Medical Informatics Initiative and the MIRACUM consortium as well as the organizational and technical steps towards establishing a data integration center at Erlangen University Hospital. Both presentations can be found here.
Japanese-German-French Forum on AI and Healthcare in Tokyo and Joint Lecture in Kyoto
On 2 December 2019, the Japanese-German-French Forum on AI and Healthcare took place in Tokyo. This event, organized by DWIH Tokyo, focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and national approaches to data sharing in healthcare. During a panel discussion on “Joint Database for Medical Data”, Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt (Professor of Medical Informatics at the Mannheim Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg) was given the opportunity to present the approaches and solutions of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) for the interoperable and secure provision of routine data for medical research in Germany. The talk can be found as a video on YouTube and the corresponding slides here.
Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Ganslandt followed an invitation by the Heidelberg University Office Kyoto (HUOK) to give a Nichi-Doku Joint Lecture on “Leveraging Clinical Data for Research: The MIRACUM Consortium within the German Medical Informatics Initiative” on 4 December 2019 in Kyoto. The corresponding slides can be found here.
Launch of the “Zentrales Studienregister” at University Hospital Erlangen
MIRACUM @ MEDICA 2019
This year the MEDICA again took place in Düsseldorf from 18th to 21st November. Visitors to the largest international medical trade fair were able to inform themselves about the Medical Informatics Initiative and the individual consortia at the BMBF booth. Furthermore, MIRACUM was given the opportunity to present its work at the Health IT Forum. Tim Herrmann (MIRACUM Project Coordinator Magdeburg, Medical Faculty of the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) presented the milestones achieved in MIRACUM so far and gave an overview on the projects for the second half of the funding period. Additionally, Gunther Höning (CO-PI MIRACUM, University Medical Center Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) gave a talk on “Meaningful Data Use and Sharing”. Both presentations are available under Conference Presentations 2019. All in all, MEDICA offered a good opportunity for interesting discussions and a lively exchange of experiences!
Presentation of the MII Demonstrator Study at the AMIA 2019 Annual Symposium
While Chancellor Merkel mentioned at the “Digitalklausur” of the German Government that there is still lots of work ahead and that we must make better use of our data, Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt (Professor of Medical Informatics at the Mannheim Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg; MIRACUM PI) gave a presentation at the AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) 2019 Annual Symposium in Washington, D.C., illustrating the results of the first successful cross-consortial project (the “Demonstrator Study”) of the German Medical Informatics Initiative. In this Demonstrator Study 19 German university hospitals from all four MII consortia collaborated to successfully demonstrate early-on access to data and cross-site analyses. The MIRACUM consortium provided its dockerized i2b2 distribution together with a bundled ETL pathway for importing the German §21 billing dataset as an essential component for getting the Demonstrator Study off the ground. The experiences gained during the project as well as further iterations of the platform will be applied in the upcoming cross-consortial use cases of the MII.
The presentation slides can be downloaded here.
A warm reunion with MIRACUM’s International Scientific Advisory Board in Eltville
In Focus: Strengthening the Training of Medical Data Scientists
In an interview in Sysmex’ company magazine Xtra, Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt (professor of Medical Informatics at the Mannheim Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg) describes the potentials of re-using routine clinical data for research in the Medical Informatics Initiative. The lack of qualified personnel currently is an important barrier towards this goal and needs to be addressed by various training measures. For this purpose, the MIRACUM consortium is developing a master’s program “Medical Data Science”, which opens up a broad field of competencies for its graduates. These include research activities, machine learning, personalized medicine and the development of health apps. Medical Data Scientists will play a key role in the utilization of information between all partners involved and realizing the potential of clinical data towards research and patient care.
Read more.
MIRACUM Summer School 2019 – once again a great experience
MIRACUM and the MII in the German Physicians Journal “Deutsches Ärzteblatt”
The current issue of the journal “Deutsches Ärzteblatt” (German Medical Journal) dedicated an extensive article to the Medical Informatics Initiative. In addition to an overview of the goals of the initiative, it also presents the four consortia and their use cases. Here, MIRACUM already gives an outlook for the next steps: On the one hand, a consortium-wide research portal will be established in the coming year, enabling researchers to obtain information about available patient records at the affiliated hospitals. On the other hand, approaches to enable future patient involvement via a patient portal will be pursued.
Although the consortia are in competition, it is emphasized that a strong focus should be placed on cross-consortia cooperation in working groups (Consent, Data Sharing, Interoperability and Communication) and projects such as POLAR (POLymedikation (Polymedication), Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen (Drug Interactions), Risiken (Risks)) and CORD (Collaboration On Rare Diseases) in order not to lose sight of the nationwide harmonization effort. This is also the case for upcoming projects such as the electronic patient file (ePA), which aims to be research-compatible by 2025.
You can find the full article here.
New member of the i2b2/tranSMART Foundation
MIRACUM is proud that Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt from University Medicine Mannheim has been elected as a new member of the i2b2/tranSMART Foundation. The i2b2 and tranSMART platforms play an important role for the consortium as research repositories within the MIRACOLIX toolbox. We are looking forward to actively participating in their further coordination and development within the Foundation. Please find further information here.
