A Look into the Data Integration Centers: The Jena Data Integration Center as a Central Interface for Patient Care, Biomedical Research and IT

In the new SMITH News series “A Look into the Data Integration Centers”, each month a Data Integration Center established within the SMITH Consortium of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) will be presented. The Data Integration Centers, which were initially established at university medical centers, provide secure and privacy-compliant access to high-quality data from routine care. In the first part of the series, the team of Data Integration Center Jena gives an insight into its structure, services and future developments:

How is the Data Integration Center Jena structured?

The Data Integration Centers Jena is part of the IT department at the Jena University Hospital and works closely with the Institute of Medical Statistics, Informatics and Data Sciences as well as with the clinics and institutes on site. It is divided into five work areas:

• Project Management
• Quality Management
• Data Management
• Software Development
• IT infrastructure

What services do you offer to researchers?

DIZ Jena offers comprehensive support to researchers, including:

• Consulting for local and multi-center research projects with routine data use
• Support for the inclusion of patients with informed consent in studies
• Access to health data of the Jena University Hospital
• Collection of new data via web-based tools at the Jena site

All services are available via the Jena University Hospital website.

What are your goals for the future?

The Data Integration Center Jena should become the contact point for translational projects and interoperability at the University Hospital. In the future, the DIZ should position itself as a central interface between patient care, biomedical research and IT and be the point of contact for the following topics, among others:

• Use of treatment data for research projects
• Introduction of new IT systems and technical standards in patient care
• Application of new legal frameworks such as the German Health Data Use Act (GDNG)
• Development and integration of infrastructures for research data

Employees at the Data Integration Center Jena, as of September 2024: 14 persons

MII Projects: INTERPOLAR, RISK PRINCIPLE, DISTANCE

Since 2018, the university medical sites of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) have been setting up data integration centers funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In 2023, the Data Integration Centers of the university hospitals were integrated into the Network of University Medicine (NUM). Since then, they have been funded by the BMBF as part of the NUM, but continue to be managed by the MII.