MIE May 2023

Abstract

With this tutorial, participants will gain a detailed insight into the Data Sharing Framework (DSF) (https://github.com/highmed/highmed-dsfopen in new window). The open source DSF enables users to execute biomedical research and healthcare delivery processes across organizations, and the tutorial will demonstrate this with examples from the German Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) (https://www.medizininformatik-initiative.de/en/startopen in new window) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The tutorial will cover fundamental concepts of distributed processes, the DSFs architecture and key standards such as HL7 FHIR and BPMN 2.0. Participants will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the DSF by working with different processes in a lab setting. Technical aspects such as authentication and authorization will be covered, as well as guidance on using the DSF for other use cases. This tutorial is designed for those involved in distributed research projects, including project members and software developers, as well as individuals interested in multi-organizational research projects.

Topic

The use of real-world data collected by healthcare providers for bio-medical research requires the data to be available and accessible. This is especially important when considering the usage of data across organizations. Distributed processes such as feasibility studies, record linkage, and data sharing need to be established for effective consolidation and analysis.
While even multi-center retrospective studies using real-world data become commonplace, maintaining infrastructure components for every project conducted is not sustainable. To address this, the Data Sharing Framework (DSF) was developed as an open source, use case independent distributed business process engine to execute cross-organizational research and healthcare delivery processes.

The tutorial will cover the fundamental concepts of distributed processes and will provide an overview of the DSF's architecture and key standards such as HL7 FHIR and BPMN 2.0 that are used in the framework. The tutorial will present real-world examples to illustrate the DSFs capabilities and delve into specific issues the DSF addresses for the German Medical Informatics Initiative (MII).

Participants will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the DSF by working with different processes in a lab setting. Technical aspects such as authentication and authorization, onboarding of new organizations and guidance on using the DSF for other use cases, such as specific research projects or new infrastructure developments, will be covered.
Finally, the tutorial will present lessons learned from the last years of using the DSF in test and production environments in multiple research consortia and will present ideas for future improvements based on feedback from end-users, process developers, project managers and administrative staff.

Target Group

Decision makers and project members with data sharing ideas looking for an architecture, as well as medical informatics professionals and software developers tasked with building multi-centric data sharing applications, are the target audience for this tutorial.

What you need

You need a laptop with a web browser for the hands-on portion of the tutorial.

What you will learn

You will...

… gain knowledge on various distributed processes specific to bio-medical research.
… understand the unique challenges and considerations from the German MII resulting in the design and architecture of the DSF.
… be introduced to the key concepts of the DSF and the various contexts in which it can be applied.
… learn how to evaluate if the DSF is appropriate for their particular project or application your planning.
… understand the difficulties that can occur when implementing distributed processes, as well as strategies for addressing them.