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GOSH-Aridhia Partnership: Advancing Data-Driven Healthcare
Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) is a leader in paediatric healthcare innovation. Central to its digital transformation has been the deployment of their EPIC EPR and the development of the Digital Research Environment (DRE), a secure and scalable platform supporting research and clinical advancements. Partnering with Aridhia Informatics since 2017, GOSH has established a state-of-the-art DRE data infrastructure that enables collaborative, data-driven healthcare innovation.
Evolution of the GOSH DRE
The DRE was designed to facilitate the secondary use of clinical data to improve hospital operations, planning, and research. Initially hosted on UK Cloud, it transitioned to Microsoft Azure in 2019/2020, enhancing scalability and security. Since then, the DRE has expanded significantly, including a specialist Hospital Workspaces environment with enhanced security. A centralised landing portal now provides seamless access to FAIR Data Services and multiple workspace hubs, streamlining authentication through Single Sign-On (SSO).
Security and Compliance
Ensuring data security is critical to GOSH’s research initiatives. The DRE meets internationally recognised security standards, including ISO 27001 for information security, ISO 27701 for privacy management, HITRUST and Cyber Essentials Plus certification. It also aligns with NHS Digital’s Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) and GDPR regulations. Advanced security measures, such as role-based access controls, encryption, audit logging, and trusted Identity Providers (IdPs) for SSO, provide a robust framework for secure research collaboration.
Data Growth and Standardisation
Over the past eight years, the DRE has accommodated increasing volumes of multi-modal data, including genomics, imaging, and structured clinical data. Genomic data, previously stored as PDF documents in the Electronic Patient Record (EPR), is now processed using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to standardise it in the GOSH DRE FHIR server. Imaging data integration is underway, leveraging XNAT to facilitate cohort extraction and de-identification before analysis within the DRE.
To support data standardisation, GOSH embarked on transforming its Research Data Views (RDVs) into the OMOP Common Data Model (CDM). This initiative, partially funded by the European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN), enhances interoperability, and enables participation in federated research projects. The OMOP curation process is conducted within a Hospital Workspace, eliminating the need for a separate curation environment and thereby reducing costs.
GOSH-Developed Tools
GOSH has developed several tools within the DRE, including the Cardiac M&M App and PICTURE App. The Cardiac M&M App supports the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department in monitoring patient activity and care standards, using R Shiny dashboards to visualise data. The PICTURE App integrates GOSH EHR data, offering a cohort builder, phenotype-based segmentation, and standardised analyses.
Advancements in MLOps
GOSH and Aridhia are actively integrating Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) within the DRE. MLOps facilitates the deployment, monitoring, and management of machine learning models, ensuring transparency, bias-awareness, and regulatory compliance.
FHIR Implementation and Smart on FHIR
As part of an HDR UK-funded initiative, GOSH and Aridhia implemented FHIR to improve data sharing and accessibility. The DRE now hosts two FHIR APIs—one with synthetic data for hackathons and another with real patient data for research. The DRE also supports Smart on FHIR app development, integrating Git, Jupyter Notebooks, and Gitea for version control and collaboration.
Federated Research and the PHEMS Project
GOSH and Aridhia are key partners in the PHEMS project, which focuses on federated analysis across European paediatric hospitals. The project uses the OMOP CDM for benchmarking clinical outcomes and training machine learning models while maintaining data governance. GOSH has deployed Aridhia’s open source Federated Node within its infrastructure, enabling secure cross-institutional research collaboration.
Syndication and Data FAIRness
Aridhia’s FAIR Data Services ensures that GOSH datasets adhere to Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) principles. A selection of GOSH’s datasets’ metadata is syndicated to the HDR UK Data Gateway, enhancing data discoverability while maintaining governance controls.
Conclusion
The partnership between GOSH and Aridhia has driven significant advancements in secure, data-driven research. Through strategic infrastructure growth, compliance with international security standards, and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies like MLOps and federated analysis, the DRE has positioned GOSH as a leader in paediatric research innovation. With ongoing collaborations and enhancements, the GOSH DRE continues to evolve, ensuring that healthcare data remains a valuable resource for improving patient outcomes and scientific discovery.
For a comprehensive review of these developments, please refer to the full white paper on the GOSH DRIVE website.