Medical informatics has been defined (AMIA) as the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective use of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific research, problem-solving, and decision-making, driven by efforts to improve human health.

STRATEGIC GOALS

Transform data into useful knowledge to IMPROVE health research, clinical decision-making and the QUALITY OF LIFE of our PATIENTS.

• Advanced health data processing: development of algorithms and techniques to handle large volumes of clinical and genomic data.
• Annotation and normalization: use of standardized vocabularies to improve interoperability and data quality.
• Decision support and visualization: intuitive tools that allow for more accurate clinical decisions.
• 360° Patient Data Management: comprehensive management of genomic, phenotypic data and other risk factors (environmental, social and digital determinants of health).

1. Digital Health

Development of advanced platforms to improve healthcare and health research
Objectives:

• Develop an open-source patient-centred digital platform to improve accessibility to clinical trials for underserved and underrepresented populations (US/UR)
• Co-create and validate methodological approaches and tools and solutions for the digital transformation of healthcare
• Design specific training programmes for all actors involved and promote professionalism in this area

Current projects:

• READI - READI Landing Page (ihi-readi.org)

 

2. Data Spaces and Artificial Intelligence

Promoting data interoperability within the framework of the European Health Data Space. AI and knowledge management projects
Objectives:

• Provide good quality and security to the data that we already have aggregated in the SERMAS data lake (Cloudera), as well as facilitate future intakes and extractions that may arise.
• Through the Data Office we want to promote the value, knowledge, security, privacy and excellent quality of data, so that we can encourage the use of these (secondary use).
• Create pipelines for transforming clinical data, ensuring their persistence and compatibility with the most widely used standards internationally (OMOP, OpenEHR, i2b2, …)

 
 
 
Current projects:

• OMICSPACE –  Plataforma Federada para Datos Multimodales, financiado por el Ministerio para la Transformación Digital y de la Función Pública. (Programa Espacios de Datos Sectoriales)

 

• SHIELD - SHIELD – Strategic Health Initiatives for Effective Disease Prevention (horizon-shield.eu)

 

3. Integration of Genetic and Clinical Data

Integration of genetic, phenotypic and clinical data for personalized diagnosis and treatments
Objectives:

• Contribute to the establishment of a network for the diagnosis of rare diseases in children
• Application of Electronic Medical Records standards (minimum set of clinical data)
• Implement federated information exchange models.
• Application of automated tools to share and analyze genomic and clinical information (e.g.: Beacon)

Current projects:

• IMPACT- UNICAS - https://impact.isciii.es/unicas-implementation-of-a-pediatric-network-for-personalised-medicine-in-rare-pediatric-diseases-a-pilot-project/

 

4. Informatics, climate change and health (Exposoma Informatics)

• To develop explanatory and predictive epidemiological models at Hospital Universitario La Paz (HULP) to anticipate the impact of environmental phenomena, including climate change, on healthcare and hospital admissions. Develop an AI model to predict demand in the emergency department and improve resource planning.
• Tools to calculate the net environmental impact of digitisation of healthcare processes and application of digital technology to contribute to sustainability and the SDGs.
• Assess the impact of environmental factors on chronic diseases such as respiratory, cardiovascular, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and psychiatric disorders.

Current projects:

• ExpoPaz - The environmental and climate change impact in the healthcare activity of the La Paz University Hospital, funded by the Carlos III Health Institute (Strategic Action in Health)