The nation is currently undergoing a major shift, in which healthcare providers will adopt Electronic Health Records (EHRs), with financial support from the federal government. The importance of Health IT (HIT), and its role in delivering high quality care, is at the forefront as never before.
As healthcare providers go "digital," interoperability—a central tenet of caBIG®—will be of paramount importance. Through caBIG®, we can link together the scientists, clinicians, patients and other biomedical stakeholders to conduct more productive research. The results of that research can then be translated into improved patient care, and those improved patient outcomes can fuel further research, in a continuous "virtuous" cycle that reunites research and clinical care.
Facilitating Interoperability with caGrid
At the heart of the caBIG® program is an IT infrastructure that enables connectivity among people, organizations, data, and analysis tools. Invisible to the end-user and customized for the specific need of biomedical researchers, caGrid is a model-driven, service-oriented architecture that provides standards-based core "services," tools, and interfaces so the community can connect to caGrid easily to share data and analysis efficiently and securely.
There are currently more than 100 grid nodes online at government, academic, and commercial organizations around the country. For a real-time list of available grid nodes and services, look here.
caBIG® provides both the infrastructure to enable data sharing and the tools to control data access. Issues of data security and evaluating which data set can be shared falls to the Data Sharing and Intellectual Capital (DSIC) Workspace, which addresses the legal, regulatory, ethical, policy, academic, proprietary, and contractual issues related to data exchange for public health and research purposes. caBIG® is based on the belief that strong, confidential, privacy, and security measures are both necessary and feasible in any electronic health information exchange environment, and that the measure can be scaled to accommodate a broad range of participants without unnecessarily impeding scientific discovery and medical progress.
caBIG® provides guidelines and tools to help researchers evaluate the sensitivity of their data. caBIG® has developed the Data Sharing and Security Framework (DSSF), which includes analytical tools to help researchers address the issues of federal privacy regulation, human participant protections, sponsor contract compliance, and proprietary interests. For information about the specific tools and support, please visit the DSIC Knowledge Center.
Health Information Technologies and caBIG®
caBIG® is actively collaborating with multiple organizations to use caBIG® as the electronic "connector" to link disparate sectors of the healthcare system to improve interoperability and facilitate data sharing.
- Family Health History Tool: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Family Health History Tool was launched, hosted and supported by the caBIG® program and represents a foundational step toward personalized medicine.
- Nationwide Health Information Network: caBIG® technology is being integrated into the architecture of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), whose goal is to provide secure, nationwide access to health information by connecting researchers, caregivers, providers, and patients in a seamless network.
- Oncology Electronic Health Record: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the preeminent professional society for oncologists, and the NCI are collaborating to design an oncology Electronic Health Record (EHR) that will utilize caBIG® standards for interoperability. This new EHR will then be deployed to the participating hospitals of the National Community Cancer Center Program (NCCCP), bringing advanced information technology to traditionally underserved patients.
For a complete list of caBIG® tools, see our "Finding the Right Tools" section
Other articles and presentations of interest
caBIG® Awarded Bio-IT World's Editor's Choice Award
The caBIG® initiative was honored as the sole winner of Bio-IT World's prestigious Editor's Choice Award 2008, for the implementation of an open source network to speed cancer research.
caBIG® Seeks Broader Adoption within the Biomedical Community
caBIG® hosted an industry summit and releases resources aimed at setting the stage for broader adoption of its infrastructure, interoperability framework, and tools.
Getting Connected with caBIG®
The caBIG® Community continues to expand as the imperative of "connectivity" gains ground in the cancer research community.
