University of Liverpool
CASE STUDY
University of Liverpool
A large pharmaceutical company and the University of Liverpool are working together in a number of clinical research projects, among which, the analysis of immune-therapy treatments. In 2019, these organizations came to Luminis Technologies with a challenge: how can we use data from hospitals and general practitioners to a) give them real-time advice on medication that has the least number of side-effects b) learn from the long-term data about side-effects in order to developer better medication in the future and c) use data to recalibrate existing treatment methods.
Data ingestion
The project started with data sets covering patient and health records covering a period of three years from 8 NHS institutions. Additional updates can be uploaded by medical staff in a secure portal or retrieved automatically by using secure batch updates. The platform can cater towards a variety of institutions and scenarios and new data import methods or institutions can be added quickly.
One of the main challenges here is how to combine data, from a number of sources, often involving manual entry, into one coherent dataset, without ‘manipulating’ test data. By using data transformations and quality checks the incoming data is structured and stored in a single repository. Validation rules are applied, allowing for fault tolerance, privacy settings incorporated, and a logical, canonical model is implemented for retrieval, statistical analysis, or, in future, intelligent applications like treatment prediction.
Future proof
Currently one data-protocol is used, but that gives little guidance for the future. New medical fields, more complex diagnoses and new insights must be allowed in the datasets. For that, the developers created a flexible model, empowered by the transformation mechanisms of MediGrid, to be resilient, towards any future demand on the data. Also, new ways of sharing data, among the medical community are currently under investigation, as the platform allows for complex attribute based access.
The result for the University of Liverpool
MediGrid provides the University of Liverpool, and potentially others, with a secure, flexible and scalable platform that will be used in the coming years as a foundation for integrated clinical research. It significantly improved the efficiency and quality of their medical research.