Research Data Standards
Peter Knight
Deputy Director – Research Information and Intelligence
3rd September 2013
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care
Data Standards in Research
To response to Royal Society of Chemistry ChemSpider database:
• The Department of Health welcomes the idea
and has a similar initiative underway, via the,
National Institute for Health Research;
• This initiative started because:
• Different concepts / different points of the research cycle
• An example is: “Start Date” – 14 definitions
2
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care
Data Standards in Research
Setting the scene for change:
• NIHR Information Systems Strategy 2013:
“The expectation for each NIHR Business Unit is that they will work locally to
adopt data standards that enable data integration wherever possible”
•
Including 13/14 objective:
Develop Data Standards Group and issue initial draft of NIHR Data Dictionary
• NIHR Vision, Strategy, Actions and Metrics plan
(VSAM):
identifies development and delivery of consistent data standards as a key action
underpinning strategy for optimising the NIHR research system.
3
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care
What the work is happening in the NIHR
Aims
• Creating a consistent set of core data standards across the NIHR,
promoting their adoption and use within agreed timeframes.
Driver
• A common need to work more effectively with the same information and
report it consistently to stakeholder and the Department.
Benefits
• Reduce time incurred by DH in reconciling information provided from
different parts of the NIHR;
• Improve interoperability between NIHR organisations, resources can
spend time on other value-adding activities;
• Improve researchers’ experience – data is entered once then reused;
• Increase the attractiveness of the UK research offering (a) attracting
further investment, b) as a good place to carry out research);
• Enhance the research and international presence, supporting the
“health and wealth” remit and specifically the IS Strategy goals.
4
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care
Guiding Principles of the work
5
PRINCIPLE 1
Data standards in use across NIHR should be centrally held,
managed and made readily accessible
PRINCIPLE 2
The Data standards across NIHR should be driven both bottom
up, enforcing standards at data collection phase and top down,
enforcing data standards applied to all centralised DH reporting
PRINCIPLE 3
Use of existing credible externally maintained and managed
standards, whereby NHS and Health data standards should
generally be adopted where ever possible
PRINCIPLE 4
Establish a NIHR Core Data Model
PRINCIPLE 5
The concept of master data management should be
implemented for all standards
PRINCIPLE 6
Collaborative Framework
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care
Data Standards in Research
• This work has recently developed and being
piloted;
• Good progress is being made on building a core
data set for the NIHR;
• An example is the NIHRInfo Project
established to utilise the core data set and
establish for the FIRST TIME a relevant pan
NIHR research view of information.
6
DH – Leading the nation’s health and care