The COVID-19 Data Exchange Platform of the German University Medicine
Hans‐Ulrich Prokosch, Thomas Bahls, Martin Bialke, Jürgen Eils, Christian Fegeler, Julian Gruendner, Birger Haarbrandt, Christopher Hampf, Wolfgang Hoffmann, Hauke Hund, Marvin Kampf, Lorenz A. Kapsner, Piotr Kasprzak, Oliver Kohlbacher, Dagmar Krefting, Jonathan M. Mang, Michael Marschollek, Sebastian Mate, Armin Müller, Fabian Praßer, Julian Saß, Sebastian C. Semler, Holger Stenzhorn, Sylvia Thun, Sven Zenker, Roland Eils
Abstract
COVID-19 has challenged the healthcare systems worldwide. To quickly identify successful diagnostic and therapeutic approaches large data sharing approaches are inevitable. Though organizational clinical data are abundant, many of them are available only in isolated silos and largely inaccessible to external researchers. To overcome and tackle this challenge the university medicine network (comprising all 36 German university hospitals) has been founded in April 2020 to coordinate COVID-19 action plans, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies and collaborative research activities. 13 projects were initiated from which the CODEX project, aiming at the development of a Germany-wide Covid-19 Data Exchange Platform, is presented in this publication. We illustrate the conceptual design, the stepwise development and deployment, first results and the current status.