MIRACUM submits application for expansion and extension phase within medical informatics initiative

Today, March 31, 2022, at 12 noon, the application deadline for the funding of the “Medical Informatics Initiative (MII): Expansion and Extension Phase” ended. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which funds the initiative, formulates the goal here: “The funding initiative aims to create the conditions for a long-term and overarching basic structure for data exchange between all university hospitals. The aim of this funding guideline is to expand the use of data across locations, both in terms of the types of data and the data sources. This is accompanied by the sustainable consolidation of centralized and decentralized infrastructures – especially data integration centers. The Medical Informatics Initiative is to be strengthened as a central partner in this process and cooperate with other institutions to steadily broaden the data base.” (Link)

After the successful work of the last years, the MIRACUM consortium has set itself the big goal to continue to shape the path of the MII. For this purpose, the funding application was submitted today. We thank all MIRACUM staff and especially those involved in the application process for their excellent work.

Background:

The goal of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) is to digitally network routine data from patient care nationwide and make it available for medical research in order to treat diseases faster and more effectively in the future. All of Germany’s university medical centers are working on this together with other research institutions, companies, health insurance companies and patient representatives in the four consortia DIFUTURE, HiGHmed, MIRACUM and SMITH.

In the current development and networking phase (2018-2022), the BMBF is funding the establishment of data integration centers at university hospitals with more than 200 million euros. From 2023 to 2026, collaboration between university medical centers is to be expanded and extended to include new partners.

In addition, the BMBF is funding six Digital Progress Hubs Health with around 50 million euros (2021-2025) as part of the MII. Their task is to incorporate (initially in pilot projects) the pioneering work of the university hospitals into other areas of the healthcare system: from outpatient care in practices to rehabilitation and aftercare. To strengthen research and teaching in the field of digital health, the BMBF is also supporting newly established professorships with a total of 21 junior research groups and providing around 30 million euros for this purpose (2020-2026).

A coordination office is responsible for the national coordination of the MIIs, which the Technology and Methods Platform for Networked Medical Research e.V. (TMF) with the Medizinischen Fakultätentag (MFT) and the Verband der Universitätsklinika Deutschlands e.V. (VUD) in Berlin.