Data Transformation and Harmonization

The Data Integration Center (DIC) Essen, established as part of the German Medical Informatics Initiative, enables the collection, integration, and exchange of medical data for clinical care and research. It ensures data quality and protection while providing services to clinicians, researchers, and patients. The DIC has separate Clinical and Research Domains for non-pseudonymized and pseudonymized data, respectively.

Built on the Smart Hospital Information Platform (SHIP), the DIC has over a decade of development and is a key player in shaping Germany’s Smart Hospital concept. It transfers clinical data into FHIR format, enriching it with semantic codings to ensure interoperability and compliance. With SHIP’s integration, the Clinical Domain houses over one billion FHIR resources and data from one million patients, accessible for local applications and patient services.

DIC Essen, created in collaboration with the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and UME’s Central IT department, is one of Germany’s most productive data integration centers.

If you like to have more information about the DIC and its benefits for clinicians and researchers, have a look here.

If you are a patient and would like to know more about how and for what purpose your patient data is collected, you can obtain more information in this flyer or at this link. Also this Youtube video will inform you about what patient consent is and why it is important.