The detailed information on a large number of national MS registries in Europe is a prerequisite to facilitating harmonized integration of existing data from MS registries and databases, as well as comprehensive analyses and comparison across European populations.

EUReMS will represent a tool to provide up to date, comparable and sustainable MS data through an effective and credible register, which will encourage extensive knowledge building of MS, more equitable policies and higher standards in MS treatment and services.

Background: The aim of the German Medical Informatics Initiative is to establish a national infrastructure for integrating and sharing health data. To this, Data Integration Centers are set up at university medical centers, which address data harmonization, information security and data protection. To capture patient consent, a common informed consent template has been developed. It consists of different modules addressing permissions for using data and biosamples. On the technical level, a common digital representation of information from signed consent templates is needed. As the partners in the initiative are free to adopt different solutions for managing consent information (e.g. IHE BPPC or HL7 FHIR Consent Resources), we had to develop an interoperability layer. Methods: First, we compiled an overview of data items required to reflect the information from the MII consent template as well as patient preferences and derived permissions. Next, we created entity-relationship diagrams to formally describe the conceptual data model underlying relevant items. We then compared this data model to conceptual models describing representations of consent information using different interoperability standards. We used the result of this comparison to derive an interoperable representation that can be mapped to common standards. Results: The digital representation needs to capture the following information: (1) version of the consent, (2) consent status for each module, and (3) period of validity of the status. We found that there is no generally accepted solution to represent status information in a manner interoperable with all relevant standards. Hence, we developed a pragmatic solution, comprising codes which describe combinations of modules with a basic set of status labels. We propose to maintain these codes in a public registry called ART-DECOR. We present concrete technical implementations of our approach using HL7 FHIR and IHE BPPC which are also compatible with the open-source consent management software gICS.

The German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN) has committed itself to establish a prospective national cohort of patients with major psychiatric disorders, the so-called DGPPN-Cohort. This project will enable the scientific exploitation of high-quality data and biomaterial from psychiatric patients for research. It will be set up using harmonised data sets and procedures for sample generation and guided by transparent rules for data access and data sharing regarding the central research database. While the main focus lies on biological research, it will be open to all kinds of scientific investigations, including epidemiological, clinical or health-service research.