08 December 2020, Brussels, Belgium. A critical aspect of the EHDEN project is for it to collaborate with Data Partners, such as hospitals, primary care providers, networks of both, regional datasets, claims databases and cohorts, with a view to harmonising their clinical data locally to a common data model. Key to the success of the collaboration is the support of federated research via standardised analytical tools.
EHDEN, within the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), is a public-private partnership responding to the need to improve our speed to answers in real-world research. To this end, it has been creating a federated network, in collaboration with Data Partners, Small-to-Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs), the OHDSI framework and network, researchers, regulatory authorities and many others.
EHDEN is working with SMEs to assist in conducting data harmonisation, training and certifying them and it organises open public calls for Data Partners and SMEs to be involved. There have thus far been three open public calls for Data Partners:
- Pilot call (September 2019)
- COVID-19 rapid collaboration call (April-May 2020)
- Most recent general call, which ran 15 September – 13 October
The EHDEN project is very pleased to announce the following 27 new Data Partners have been selected in our 3rd open call for data partners:
- Akrivia Health
- AZ Klina
- Barts Health NHS Trust
- BCB Medical Ltd
- Centro Clínico Académico – Braga, Associação (2CA-Braga)
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin
- Clinical Center of Serbia
- Clinical Hospital Dubrava
- Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico
- Fundesalud, Government of Extremadura
- Harvey Walsh Ltd
- Hospital District of Southwest Finland
- Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine
- IUC Cerrahpasa TIP Fakületesi
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals
- Lille University Hospital
- Marina Salud S.A.
- Medaman
- Medical University of Vienna
- MS Forschungs- und Projektentwicklungs-gGmbH
- Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu
- Semmelweis University
- SIMG
- STIZON
- UK National Neonatal Research Database
- University MS Center
- University of Pécs
Associate Prof. Peter Rijnbeek, Coordinator of EHDEN, said, “We are delighted by the once again very strong response seen in our last open call, which virtually doubles the number of participating Data Partners from four more additional countries. We look forward to working together with our Data Partners, SMEs and collaborators to build the research network we all need to better share and more smartly manage real-world research in healthcare.”
Nigel Hughes, Scientific Director, Janssen, Project Lead of EHDEN, said, “Indeed, this is a tremendous validation of the value proposition of EHDEN for Data Partners and SMEs, supporting our collective need for open science collaboration in Europe to conduct collaborative real-world research.”
Ultimately, following this harmonisation work, a federated network is being established where data remains local, with only the research query moving between Data Partners. This ensures patient privacy and confidentiality within a ‘privacy by design’ model. Research use cases, within EHDEN, and by Data Partners and researchers, will be conducted to evaluate the network, as well as to establish an open science community in the longer term.
