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Data Sharing Framework

A performant, secure, and innovative framework that enables biomedical researchers to extract value from routine data.

Introduction

Introduction to the DSF and informations about Use-Cases/Projects.

Get Started

Get technical insights and install the DSF | Develop Process Plugins.

About Us

Contact, partners, the team behind the DSF and more... Join our community!

GitHub

Take a look at the open-source reference implementation.

Data Sharing Framework

The Data Sharing Framework (DSF) is a concept for a secure middleware to distribute data sharing processes based on the BPMN 2.0 and FHIR R4 standards. The DSF is used to support biomedical research with routine data, aiming to extract, merge, pseudonymize and provide data stored in multiple distributed organizations. Every participating site runs a FHIR endpoint accessible by other sites and a business process engine in the local secured network. The process engines execute BPMN processes in order to coordinate local and remote steps necessary to enable cross-site data sharing or feasibility analyses. This includes access to local data repositories, use-and-access-committee decision support, consent filtering, and privacy preserving record-linkage and pseudonymization. The aim is to enable secure and syntactically-, semantically- and process-interoperable data exchange across organizational boundaries. The secure communication infrastructure is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the Medical Informatics structure as DSF Community.

DSF concept
DSF concept

News

DSF 2.0 Announcement
We’re excited to announce that the next major release, DSF 2.0, is currently in development! This update brings significant improvements and new features designed to enhance performance and usability. In this article is a summary of what to expect in the upcoming release. Upcomming datails will be available under Operations
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Follow-up FHIR DevDays 2025
After much anticipation, the DSF team participated at the FHIR DevDays 2025. The Event was held from June 3rd until June 6th in Amsterdam. As the world’s largest event dedicated to HL7 FHIR, DevDays brings together health IT professionals from across the globe to deepen their understanding of the standard, to exchange knowledge, and to explore innovative real-world applications in healthcare!
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FHIR DevDays 2025

FHIR DevDays 2025
Our DSF team will be at FHIR DevDays 2025 from June 3rd to 6th in Amsterdam! DevDays is the world’s leading FHIR event in the field of digital health. Join us at the event for engaging community talks by Maximilian Kurscheidt and Hauke Hund. We’ll be discussing the International Patient Summary Challenge 2025, as well as how we can foster research through Real-World Data Sharing and Process Orchestration using FHIR and BPMN. We look forward to seeing you there!

If you'd like to connect with us during the event, feel free to arrange a meeting beforehand by emailing us at 📧dsf-gecko@hs-heilbronn.de
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Feel free to contact us via dsf-gecko@hs-heilbronn.de and we will take care of your request as soon as possible.