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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Methods Inf Med 2019; 58(S 02): e72-e79
DOI: 10.1055/s-0039-3399579
Original Article
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

One Step Away from Technology but One Step Towards Domain Experts—MDRBridge: A Template-Based ISO 11179-Compliant Metadata Processing Pipeline

Ann-Kristin Kock-Schoppenhauer
1   IT Center for Clinical Research, University of Lübeck, Germany
,
B. Kroll
1   IT Center for Clinical Research, University of Lübeck, Germany
,
M. Lambarki
2   Federated Information Systems, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
,
H. Ulrich
1   IT Center for Clinical Research, University of Lübeck, Germany
,
S. Stahl-Toyota
3   Medical Informatics for Translational Oncology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
,
J.K. Habermann
4   Section for Translational Surgical Oncology and Biobanking, Department of Surgery, University of Lübeck & University Clinical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Lübeck, Germany
5   Interdisciplinary Center for Biobanking-Lübeck (ICB-L), University of Lübeck, Germany
,
P. Duhm-Harbeck
1   IT Center for Clinical Research, University of Lübeck, Germany
,
J. Ingenerf
6   Institute of Medical Informatics, University of Lübeck, Germany
,
M. Lablans
2   Federated Information Systems, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

19 November 2018

15 August 2019

Publication Date:
18 December 2019 (online)

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Summary

Background Secondary use of routine medical data relies on a shared understanding of given information. This understanding is achieved through metadata and their interconnections, which can be stored in metadata repositories (MDRs). The necessity of an MDR is well understood, but the local work on metadata is a time-consuming and challenging process for domain experts.

Objective To support the identification, collection, and provision of metadata in a predefined structured manner to foster consolidation. A particular focus is placed on user acceptance.

Methods We propose a software pipeline MDRBridge as a practical intermediary for metadata capture and processing, based on MDRSheet, an ISO 11179–3 compliant template using popular spreadsheet software. It serves as a practical mediator for metadata acquisition and processing in a broader pipeline. Due to the different origins of the metadata, both manual entry and automatic extractions from application systems are supported. To enable the export of collected metadata into external MDRs, a mapping of ISO 11179 to Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) Operational Data Model (ODM) was developed.

Results MDRSheet is embedded in the processing pipeline MDRBridge and delivers metadata in the CDISC ODM format for further use in MDRs. This approach is used to interactively unify core datasets, import existing standard datasets, and automatically extract all defined data elements from source systems. The involvement of clinical domain experts improved significantly due to minimal changes within their usual work routine.

Conclusion A high degree of acceptance was achieved by adapting the working methods of clinical domain experts. The designed process is capable of transforming all relevant data elements according to the ISO 11179-3 format. MDRSheet is used as an intermediate format to present the information at a glance and to allow editing or supplementing by domain experts.

Keywords

metadata repositories - database - XML - pooling