Yun-Chiao Wu, Engineer, Clinical Innovation and Research Center

Chia-Hsiang Lo, Engineer, Dept. of Information Technology

In 2022, Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) Hospital introduced a framework for data governance and developed the Cheng Kung University Hospital Academic Research Database (CARD) to turn data into assets of the hospital. This platform reduces the time required for data acquisition and preparation before conducting research, thus accelerating research output for further empirical medicine research.

According to the statistics published by the Taiwanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, cardiovascular diseases have long been among the 10 leading causes of death in Taiwanese individuals. Patients with diabetes are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. In NCKU Hospital, the CARD platform is used to predict the risk of stroke and hospitalization in patients with diabetes. The obtained results are consistent with international medical reports.

NCKU Hospital has conducted research on extensive clinical topics and with diverse sources of clinical data. In general, the process from selecting required data samples for research, defining data, and entering these data into corresponding fields on the system is time-consuming due to the extensive communication required. The subsequent confirmation of the usability of data samples and the processing and protection of data further consume researchers’ time, which could otherwise be utilized to analyze the obtained data.

The CARD platform is a one-stop big data analysis platform, which uses the hospital’s electronic medical records and integrated hybrid cloud architecture. Through the collaboration between domain experts and information technology personnel, medical and technical glossaries were created and connected by using a knowledge catalog. This allows researchers to obtain required information on their own. Researchers can use this platform for data exploration, model construction, model training, and application release. Thus, this platform accelerates research and provides a comprehensive research environment. In the future, the CARD platform will continue to incorporate highly diverse data and gradually promote its applications. Researchers will be able to easily conduct cross-unit research and develop innovative applications with data, thus increasing the clinical research and development capacity in NCKU Hospital.