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GMDS 2024: Focus on interoperability and data security

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The GMDS 2024 (Annual Meeting of the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology) took place from September 8 to 11 at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden. Under the motto #gesundheitgemeinsam2024, researchers from all over Germany met to present and discuss the latest developments and results in the fields of medical and bioinformatics. The event provided an ideal platform for exchange between scientists, clinicians and industry representatives who are working together on the future of healthcare.

We were also represented at this year’s event with two exciting contributions: Clara Fischer and Christian Erhardt presented their work, which provides important impetus for improving interoperability and data security in the healthcare sector.

Clara Fischer, who has been working at the Medical Data Integration Center at Regensburg University Hospital (MEDIZUKR) since this year, presented her Master’s thesis, which she completed at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. In her thesis, she developed a concept for integrating reliable health information into patient data. As an example, she used information on endometriosis, which she took from the portal of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare: www.gesundheitsinformation.de (GI) and linked to patient data using semantic standards such as ICD-10 and SNOMED CT. This information was mapped to FHIR resources, a globally recognized standard for health data exchange. She also developed a Windows Form app that provides patients with additional information based on coded diagnoses and observations. This innovative concept has the potential to be extended to many other health topics and integrated into the electronic patient record.

Christian Erhardt from the University Hospital Tübingen presented a module for pseudonymization in the research software REDCap, which automates the process of pseudonymization and linking of patient data. The module uses E-PIX for identity management and gPAS for pseudonym management, which significantly reduces the amount of work involved in managing research data. The integration of patient information from hospital information systems (HIS) and the automatic generation of pseudonyms improve both data protection and data quality. This module not only facilitates the research workflow, but also contributes to compliance with strict data protection requirements. Further information can be found here: https://bit.ly/3Zl9zPi

We congratulate Clara Fischer and Christian Erhardt on their outstanding work and are delighted to have been part of GMDS 2024. With their innovative approaches, they are making a decisive contribution to the further development of health informatics and the improvement of patient care.

We are already looking forward to the GMDS 2025 in Jena and to meeting the scientific community again!