12 October 2016. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) recently launched the Medical Informatics Funding Scheme to enhance the use of data from healthcare and research. The ultimate aim is to strengthen medical research and improve patient care. To this end, BMBF will make 100 million euros available over the coming years. During the first step, university hospitals and partner organisations will establish and connect data integration centres (DICs). These centres allow research and healthcare data to be aggregated and integrated across multiple entities and geographic sites. At the same time, innovative IT solutions for specific medical applications will be developed.
Professor Heyo K. Kroemer, President of the German Association of Medical Faculties (MFT), highlights: “BMBF has initiated a development that will help us create intelligent solution strategies – to improve collaboration between medical and informatics professionals across multiple sites and institutions.” The Chairman of the German Association of Academic Medical Centres (VUD), Professor Michael Albrecht, also describes the funding programme as “an important rallying call for advancing research and healthcare.”
Consortia are laying the foundations
Since August 2016, BMBF has provided funding for seven consortia for the Medical Informatics conceptual phase. The consortia are to develop strategies for data use and exchange within and beyond each consortium, and work on concrete medical use cases. The consortia each comprise a minimum of two university medical centres, plus other hospitals, medical research institutions, and healthcare IT industry organisations.
- ADMIRE (Bonn, Düsseldorf, Essen, Münster, Cologne)
- DIFUTURE (Augsburg, Munich, Tübingen)
- HD4CR (Berlin, Würzburg, Ulm)
- HiGHmed (Göttingen, Hanover, Heidelberg)
- MIRACUM (Erlangen, Frankfurt/Main, Freiburg, Giessen, Heidelberg, Mainz, Mannheim, Marburg)
- share-it! (Dresden, Greifswald, Hamburg, Kiel/Lübeck, Oldenburg)
- SMITH (Aachen, Jena, Leipzig)
Interoperability and data protection: National Steering Committee coordinates collaboration across consortia
In addition to jointly developing solutions, e.g. for data protection, the National Steering Committee (NSG) is tasked with ensuring the interoperability of IT systems and data integration centres. With this goal in mind, each consortium sends two representatives to the NSG. Collaboration is governed by the Rules of Procedure, which were agreed and approved by all participating partners. This has allowed the NSG to officially begin its work.
Moreover, funding is provided for an accompanying project that offers organisational and technical support for cross-consortia collaboration via the NSG. This project is managed jointly by the German Association of Medical Faculties (MFT), the German Association of Academic Medical Centers (VUD), and TMF – Technology, Methods and Infrastructure for Networked Medical Research. Professor Michael Krawczak, Chairman of the TMF Board of Directors, explains: “Our goal is to develop an infrastructure that enables efficient data exchange at the national level, despite the heterogeneous nature of the consortia and multiple geographic sites. All participants will contribute their experience in developing overarching infrastructure for patient-oriented research.”