Bringing AVATAR researchers, lawyers and scientists from external research institutions together - that was the aim of the workshop during the Cross-Cluster Weeks. First, Dr. Eike Dazert, Managing Director of AVATAR network coordinator medways, gave the guests an overview of AVATAR's motivation and goals. Dr. Florian Rasche (Navimatix GmbH) then discussed the technical aspects of anonymizing health data. A particular technical challenge is the use of many different types of data, each of which requires suitable methods (algorithms) for anonymization. According to Rasche, standardized data formats such as the common HL7 FHIR standard could be used to make it easier to merge different data spaces. In addition, common interfaces could be used to systematically connect the data rooms and enable so-called "federated learning", for example. The actual data processing would thus largely take place directly on site (e.g. at the clinic) and still enable the creation of synthetic data sets - the avatars - without transferring sensitive patient data.
Following, Dr. Kutaiba Saleh (Data Integration Center at Jena University Hospital) illustrated the added value of better use of health data. In fact, the data could make a major contribution to clinical research and the evaluation of new methods and medicines. In the long term, this could directly improve the care of individual patients, but also make an important contribution to public health surveillance.
To conclude the talk session, Dr. Anne-Kathrin Dietel (InfectoGnostics Research Campus) presented the concepts of the "Open Science Lab", a physical and virtual experience space that will vividly convey the AVATAR project results to the interested public.
After the lecture program, Prof. Dr. Hans-Hermann Dirksen and Sophia Scherer (Liebenstein Law) were available to answer participants' questions in a legal consultation session. Topics such as GDPR, consent procedures (broad consent) and anonymization procedures for health data were discussed. In the final part of the workshop, project staff and guests discussed the topics relevant to AVATAR - technological solutions, anonymization and science communication - in an interactive World Café format.