HD4RES v1 versus HD4RES v2

HD4RES v.1

HD4RES v.1 is an application developed by healthdata.be Sciensano that allows the manager of a specific data collection project to communicate with the data provider without knowing the identification of the patient. Data are sent to the central HD4RES application via eHealth. A mechanism of encryption is put in place assuring that nobody has access to the patient identifier and medical information except the data provider.

The researcher receives the data in the software component HD4RES where he/she can monitor the status of his/her data collection, check the data and, if necessary, ask additional questions to the data provider, e.g. regarding the quality of the data.

To this end, healthdata.be sends a message back to the data provider via ehBox coding. This contains the encrypted data, together with the medical-scientific data that are encrypted with respect to the data provider. eHealth-platform takes care of the decryption of the encrypted data and delivers the data to the data provider.

The challenge for healthdata.be in Architecture 1 was that all healthcare organizations and all healthcare professionals should be able to provide data in a structured and encoded way to the researcher. The records collected from the data providers could follow many itineraries, making monitoring a complex matter.

HD4RES v.2

The main objective of HD4RES v2 is to simplify HD4RES.

Like in Architecture 1.0, the researcher will be able to monitor the Architecture 2.0 dataflow end-to-end. The feedback loop, however, will be taken out of HD4RES v2 and will be integrated into the Quality Control tool. The application HD4RES as such disappears and becomes a block SAS eGuide in DWH that takes over that function.

HD4RES v2 has now become a mere monitoring tool offering researchers an overview and status of all (external and internal) dataflows for his/her project only, as well as an overview of all HD4DP v2 and healthstat.be accounts for his/her project only.

Equally, the dataflow from ServiceNow on incidents and requests is only made visible to researchers for projects in which they are involved.