Aligning Biobanks and Data Integration Centers Efficiently (ABIDE_MI)

Abstract

ABIDE_MI is a complementary funded 18 months project within the German Medical Informatics Initiative (MII), which aims to align IT infrastructures and regulatory/governance structures between biobanks/biobanking IT and the MII data integration centres (DIC) at German university hospitals. A major task in 2021 was the systematic collection of all documents describing rules, as well as proposal/contract templates for data and biosample use and access at each of the participating 24 university hospitals and their comparison with MII-wide consented data sharing principles, documents and governance structures. This comparison revealed large heterogeneity across the ABIDE_MI sites and further, redundant structures/regulations currently established at the German university hospitals. A second task was the design and stepwise development of an IT network infrastructure with central components (data and biosample query portal) and decentralized standardized FHIR servers to capture the standardized FHIR-based core data set modules (resources) defined within the MII working group "Interoperability". Subsequent steps in the project are the harmonization of the data and biosample sharing governance/regulation frameworks at each ABIDE_MI site, creating synergies for the research infrastructures at the German university hospitals and to link those resources to the German Portal for Medical Research Data and with the BBMRI-ERIC Directory and Negotiator tools.