gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: The UCT biobank and its clinical database is the central organ at the University Hospital Frankfurt that collects, processes, stores and distributes biomaterial and clinical data from cancer patients for scientific purposes. To gain access to samples and corresponding clinical data, scientists have to write a proposal, which will be evaluated by the UCTs scientific board and afterwards approved by the local ethical committee. The whole process is supervised by a project management team. At present, this team enters all paper-based proposals into a locally stored MS-Access-database, contacts the scientific board and ethical committee and re-distributes all updates on project-status separately by telephone or email. This time-consuming and in part redundant procedure lacks transparency for scientists and hinders efficient project-tracking. Hence, a digitalization of the process is desirable for all involved stakeholders. The goal was to develop a central software tool, where scientists can easily apply for biomaterial and / or clinical data via a web interface and will be notified automatically on all status-updates, leading to improved transparency and overview of ongoing projects for all parties involved.

Methods: Initially, the application process and the views and activities of different stakeholders were analyzed. Sources for essential information were the existing collected data and possible proposal status. The whole process was outlined in flow charts, discussed and adapted accordingly. A requirement analysis for a technical process support system as well as a study of available software solutions followed. As no adaptable open-source or appropriate commercially solution could be identified, the software conception started. From the beginning, representatives of the user group were involved in the planning, e.g. by evaluating mockups.

Results: Instead of building ProSkive as a monolithic software tool, a modern approach was chosen by creating independent microservices that take care of a specific RESTful tasks, e.g. projects, users, or notifications. These services take advantage of Eureka, a message broker and discovery service for microservices which provides a better load balancing between multiple microservices [1]. Authentication is handled by an Open Source Project called Keycloak which implements openID Connect and OAuth 2.0 protocols by using JSON Web Token (JWT) [2]. This enables categorization of different rights and roles for specific users.

Discussion: ProSkive was developed as a cost-effective solution for streamlining the application procedure for biomaterial and clinical data at the UCT biobank. In its present form it will simplify initiating and tracking project proposals and will replace the current paper-based solution. An ongoing user survey will help evaluate usability and process improvement for different stakeholders. In future, ProSkive will be linked to sample and data allocation and delivery and to citation libraries (e.g. pubmed) for project related publication-tracking. The final goal is to generalize this software tool to allow easy adaptation and adjustment for other application areas where project or material tracking might be needed.

Similar challenges for project tracking were identified at other biobanks, especially when external requests are handled. A cooperation with other partners e.g. within the German Biobank Alliance [3] is therefore anticipated.

Die Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht.

Die Autoren geben an, dass kein Ethikvotum erforderlich ist.