Virtualization of open-source secure web services to support data exchange in a pediatric critical care research network

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2015 Nov;22(6):1271-6. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocv009. Epub 2015 Mar 21.

Abstract

Objectives: To examine the feasibility of deploying a virtual web service for sharing data within a research network, and to evaluate the impact on data consistency and quality.

Material and methods: Virtual machines (VMs) encapsulated an open-source, semantically and syntactically interoperable secure web service infrastructure along with a shadow database. The VMs were deployed to 8 Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network Clinical Centers.

Results: Virtual web services could be deployed in hours. The interoperability of the web services reduced format misalignment from 56% to 1% and demonstrated that 99% of the data consistently transferred using the data dictionary and 1% needed human curation.

Conclusions: Use of virtualized open-source secure web service technology could enable direct electronic abstraction of data from hospital databases for research purposes.

Keywords: data governance; electronic health record; grid; learning health care system; pediatric critical care; pediatric network; secure web services; virtual machines; virtualization.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Access to Information*
  • Computer Communication Networks*
  • Computer Systems
  • Critical Care*
  • Databases as Topic
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination / methods*
  • Internet*
  • Pediatrics / organization & administration*
  • Software