Local Self-Service Feasibility Assessments in the MII Context: The Charité Cohort Finder
The Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) lays the groundwork for making routine clinical data available for research across multiple sites. Data integration centers (DIZ) play a key role in this process by harmonizing local healthcare data, making it available in a standardized format via the FHIR Core Data Set (MII-KDS), and supporting researchers throughout all phases of research projects.
An early phase of research projects is the feasibility study. At the DIZ site at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a practical service was developed for this purpose: the Charité Cohort Finder.
The tool enables researchers to conduct feasibility inquiries independently, directly based on the MII-compliant data set at the site. Typical inclusion and exclusion criteria such as diagnoses, procedures, and demographic characteristics can be intuitively combined or placed in a temporal relationship with one another. The results are aggregated statistics and descriptions of the cohorts.
The benefits:
- Faster orientation in early project phases
- More efficient preparation of local studies and project proposals
- Reduced workload for DIZ staff due to fewer feasibility inquiries
- Transparent feasibility analyses based on standardized FHIR data
The Charité Cohort Finder exemplifies how MII infrastructure can be not only technically implemented but also further developed in a user-oriented manner, serving as a bridge between routine data and research projects.
