Publications

36 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 36

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: The Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) funds a network of university medicines (NUM) to support COVID-19 and pandemic research at national level. The “COVID-19 Data Exchange Platform” (CODEX) as part of NUM establishes a harmonised infrastructure that supports research use of COVID-19 datasets. The broad consent (BC) of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) is agreed by all German federal states and forms the legal base for data processing. All 34 participating university hospitals (NUM sites) work upon a harmonised infrastructural as well as legal basis for their data protection-compliant collection and transfer of their research dataset to the central CODEX platform. Each NUM site ensures that the exchanged consent information conforms to the already-balloted HL7 FHIR consent profiles and the interoperability concept of the MII Task Force “Consent Implementation” (TFCI). The Independent Trusted Third-Party (TTP) of the University Medicine Greifswald supports data protection-compliant data processing and provides the consent management solutions gICS. METHODS: Based on a stakeholder dialogue a required set of FHIR-functionalities was identified and technically specified supported by official FHIR experts. Next, a “TTP-FHIR Gateway” for the HL7 FHIR-compliant exchange of consent information using gICS was implemented. A last step included external integration tests and the development of a pre-configured consent template for the BC for the NUM sites. RESULTS: A FHIR-compliant gICS-release and a corresponding consent template for the BC were provided to all NUM sites in June 2021. All FHIR functionalities comply with the already-balloted FHIR consent profiles of the HL7 Working Group Consent Management. The consent template simplifies the technical BC rollout and the corresponding implementation of the TFCI interoperability concept at the NUM sites. CONCLUSIONS: This article shows that a HL7 FHIR-compliant and interoperable nationwide exchange of consent information could be built using of the consent management software gICS and the provided TTP-FHIR Gateway. The initial functional scope of the solution covers the requirements identified in the NUM-CODEX setting. The semantic correctness of these functionalities was validated by project-partners from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. The production rollout of the solution package to all NUM sites has started successfully.

Authors: Martin Bialke, Lars Geidel, Christopher Hampf, Arne Blumentritt, Peter Penndorf, Ronny Schuldt, Frank-Michael Moser, Stefan Lang, Patrick Werner, Sebastian Stäubert, Hauke Hund, Fady Albashiti, Jürgen Gührer, Hans-Ulrich Prokosch, Thomas Bahls, Wolfgang Hoffmann

Date Published: 1st Dec 2022

Publication Type: Journal article

Abstract (Expand)

Sharing data is of great importance for research in medical sciences. It is the basis for reproducibility and reuse of already generated outcomes in new projects and in new contexts. FAIR data principles are the basics for sharing data. The Leipzig Health Atlas (LHA) platform follows these principles and provides data, describing metadata, and models that have been implemented in novel software tools and are available as demonstrators. LHA reuses and extends three different major components that have been previously developed by other projects. The SEEK management platform is the foundation providing a repository for archiving, presenting and secure sharing a wide range of publication results, such as published reports, (bio)medical data as well as interactive models and tools. The LHA Data Portal manages study metadata and data allowing to search for data of interest. Finally, PhenoMan is an ontological framework for phenotype modelling. This paper describes the interrelation of these three components. In particular, we use the PhenoMan to, firstly, model and represent phenotypes within the LHA platform. Then, secondly, the ontological phenotype representation can be used to generate search queries that are executed by the LHA Data Portal. The PhenoMan generates the queries in a novel domain specific query language (SDQL), which is specific for data management systems based on CDISC ODM standard, such as the LHA Data Portal. Our approach was successfully applied to represent phenotypes in the Leipzig Health Atlas with the possibility to execute corresponding queries within the LHA Data Portal.

Authors: A. Uciteli, C. Beger, J. Wagner, A. Kiel, F. A. Meineke, S. Staubert, M. Lobe, R. Hansel, J. Schuster, T. Kirsten, H. Herre

Date Published: 24th May 2021

Publication Type: Journal article

Abstract (Expand)

Sharing data is of great importance for research in medical sciences. It is the basis for reproducibility and reuse of already generated outcomes in new projects and in new contexts. FAIR data principles are the basics for sharing data. The Leipzig Health Atlas (LHA) platform follows these principles and provides data, describing metadata, and models that have been implemented in novel software tools and are available as demonstrators. LHA reuses and extends three different major components that have been previously developed by other projects. The SEEK management platform is the foundation providing a repository for archiving, presenting and secure sharing a wide range of publication results, such as published reports, (bio)medical data as well as interactive models and tools. The LHA Data Portal manages study metadata and data allowing to search for data of interest. Finally, PhenoMan is an ontological framework for phenotype modelling. This paper describes the interrelation of these three components. In particular, we use the PhenoMan to, firstly, model and represent phenotypes within the LHA platform. Then, secondly, the ontological phenotype representation can be used to generate search queries that are executed by the LHA Data Portal. The PhenoMan generates the queries in a novel domain specific query language (SDQL), which is specific for data management systems based on CDISC ODM standard, such as the LHA Data Portal. Our approach was successfully applied to represent phenotypes in the Leipzig Health Atlas with the possibility to execute corresponding queries within the LHA Data Portal.

Authors: Alexandr Uciteli, Christoph Beger, Jonas Wagner, Alexander Kiel, Frank A Meineke, Sebastian Stäubert, Matthias Löbe, René Hänsel, Judith Schuster, Toralf Kirsten, Heinrich Herre

Date Published: 1st May 2021

Publication Type: InCollection

Abstract (Expand)

Planning clinical studies to check medical hypotheses requires the specification of eligibility criteria in order to identify potential study participants. Electronically available patient data allows to support the recruitment of patients for studies. The Smart Medical Information Technology for Healthcare (SMITH) consortium aims to establish data integration centres to enable the innovative use of available healthcare data for research and treatment optimization. The data from the electronic health record of patients in the participating hospitals is integrated into a Health Data Storage based on the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard (FHIR), developed by HL7. In SMITH, FHIR Search is used to query the integrated data. An investigation has shown the advantages and disadvantages of using FHIR Search for specifying eligibility criteria. This paper presents an approach for modelling eligibility criteria as well as for generating and executing FHIR Search queries. Our solution is based on the Phenotype Manager, a general ontological phenotyping framework to model and calculate phenotypes using the Core Ontology of Phenotypes.

Authors: A. Uciteli, C. Beger, J. Wagner, T. Kirsten, F. A. Meineke, S. Staubert, M. Lobe, H. Herre

Date Published: 26th Apr 2021

Publication Type: Journal article

Abstract (Expand)

Despite their young age, the FAIR principles are recognised as important guidelines for research data management. Their generic design, however, leaves much room for interpretation in domain-specific application. Based on practical experience in the operation of a data repository, this article addresses problems in FAIR provisioning of medical data for research purposes in the use case of the Leipzig Health Atlas project and shows necessary future developments.

Authors: M. Lobe, F. Matthies, S. Staubert, F. A. Meineke, A. Winter

Date Published: 16th Jun 2020

Publication Type: Journal article

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: The aim of the German Medical Informatics Initiative is to establish a national infrastructure for integrating and sharing health data. To this, Data Integration Centers are set up at university medical centers, which address data harmonization, information security and data protection. To capture patient consent, a common informed consent template has been developed. It consists of different modules addressing permissions for using data and biosamples. On the technical level, a common digital representation of information from signed consent templates is needed. As the partners in the initiative are free to adopt different solutions for managing consent information (e.g. IHE BPPC or HL7 FHIR Consent Resources), we had to develop an interoperability layer. METHODS: First, we compiled an overview of data items required to reflect the information from the MII consent template as well as patient preferences and derived permissions. Next, we created entity-relationship diagrams to formally describe the conceptual data model underlying relevant items. We then compared this data model to conceptual models describing representations of consent information using different interoperability standards. We used the result of this comparison to derive an interoperable representation that can be mapped to common standards. RESULTS: The digital representation needs to capture the following information: (1) version of the consent, (2) consent status for each module, and (3) period of validity of the status. We found that there is no generally accepted solution to represent status information in a manner interoperable with all relevant standards. Hence, we developed a pragmatic solution, comprising codes which describe combinations of modules with a basic set of status labels. We propose to maintain these codes in a public registry called ART-DECOR. We present concrete technical implementations of our approach using HL7 FHIR and IHE BPPC which are also compatible with the open-source consent management software gICS. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed digital representation is (1) generic enough to capture relevant information from a wide range of consent documents and data use regulations and (2) interoperable with common technical standards. We plan to extend our model to include more fine-grained status codes and rules for automated access control.

Authors: R. Bild, M. Bialke, K. Buckow, T. Ganslandt, K. Ihrig, R. Jahns, A. Merzweiler, S. Roschka, B. Schreiweis, S. Staubert, S. Zenker, F. Prasser

Date Published: 5th Jun 2020

Publication Type: Journal article

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: The aim of the German Medical Informatics Initiative is to establish a national infrastructure for integrating and sharing health data. To this, Data Integration Centers are set up at university medical centers, which address data harmonization, information security and data protection. To capture patient consent, a common informed consent template has been developed. It consists of different modules addressing permissions for using data and biosamples. On the technical level, a common digital representation of information from signed consent templates is needed. As the partners in the initiative are free to adopt different solutions for managing consent information (e.g. IHE BPPC or HL7 FHIR Consent Resources), we had to develop an interoperability layer. METHODS: First, we compiled an overview of data items required to reflect the information from the MII consent template as well as patient preferences and derived permissions. Next, we created entity-relationship diagrams to formally describe the conceptual data model underlying relevant items. We then compared this data model to conceptual models describing representations of consent information using different interoperability standards. We used the result of this comparison to derive an interoperable representation that can be mapped to common standards. RESULTS: The digital representation needs to capture the following information: (1) version of the consent, (2) consent status for each module, and (3) period of validity of the status. We found that there is no generally accepted solution to represent status information in a manner interoperable with all relevant standards. Hence, we developed a pragmatic solution, comprising codes which describe combinations of modules with a basic set of status labels. We propose to maintain these codes in a public registry called ART-DECOR. We present concrete technical implementations of our approach using HL7 FHIR and IHE BPPC which are also compatible with the open-source consent management software gICS. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed digital representation is (1) generic enough to capture relevant information from a wide range of consent documents and data use regulations and (2) interoperable with common technical standards. We plan to extend our model to include more fine-grained status codes and rules for automated access control.

Authors: Raffael Bild, Martin Bialke, Karoline Buckow, Thomas Ganslandt, Kristina Ihrig, Roland Jahns, Angela Merzweiler, Sybille Roschka, Björn Schreiweis, Sebastian Stäubert, Sven Zenker, Fabian Prasser

Date Published: 1st Jun 2020

Publication Type: Journal article

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