Data Access, Integration and Analysis Program

To help enable the advancement of medical research and patient care, Genome BC has partnered with Providence Health Care Ventures (Ventures) to provide access to their Integrated Health Informatics Datalab (IHID; formerly known as the Health Data Lab), a cloud-based bioinformatics system integrated within BC’s Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA). The IHID provides a secure platform that integrates patient data in the healthcare system with genomics and imaging data to enable the discovery of new insights to improve the health and well-being of Canadians. Privacy and data governance are built-in to ensure close alignment with the Five Safes framework for data access and governance. The layers of security, privacy and governance enable analysts to work with data without breaching privacy guidelines and creates dataset-specific or system-wide pseudonyms enabling linking and sharing of data without risking data leakage.

The goal of the Data Access, Integration, and Analysis (DAIA) program is to support researchers’ access to the IHID. Through this partnership, Genome BC aims to provide researchers with the opportunity to analyze existing genomic data integrated with PHC healthcare clinical and imaging data to enable new insights that can address a clinical need and provide benefits to the BC healthcare system. Genome BC will cover the IHID costs to facilitate use of the platform and training opportunity.

The IHID can provide the following de-identified clinical and imaging data drawn from care activities at St. Paul’s Hospital and Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital in Greater Vancouver from 2017 to the present:

200,000+ distinct individuals’ electronic medical record (EMR) information
2,500,000+ radiology medical imaging exams
Includes data from BC-wide specialty programs (cochlear implants, cystic fibrosis, etc.)

After receiving appropriate patient consent and ethics approval, the data above would be matched and linked with researcher-supplied genomic data for research project in a manner that preserves patient anonymity for individual researchers.

The IHID allows the extraction and linking of the following data types or results:

Discrete electronic medical record (EMR) fields, including
- ICD10 disease classification codes
- Surgical interventions
- Cancer stage at time of encounter
- Laboratory specimen results
Radiology medical imaging exams, including:
- 374,000+ projection x-ray exams
- 475,000+ Computed Tomography (CT) exams
- 110,000+ Mammography exams
- 290,000+ Magnetic Resonance (MR) exams
- 398,000+ Ultrasound exams
- Detailed radiology reports for above

To be eligible for the program, applicants must demonstrate all of the following:

The project has a cohort of patients who were enrolled at St. Paul’s Hospital and/or Mount Saint Joseph’s Hospital within the last 5 years;
The project will have genomics data available for these patients by the project start date, or the ability to develop genomics data within the first three (3) months of the project from already-collected samples;
The project responds to the objective of this program, namely it can clearly indicate the benefits of using the IHID in order to achieve its goals;
The project will upload its genomics data into the IHID for integration with the patients’ clinical data and imaging (request of imaging data is optional but clinical data use is required); and
The Project Leader is an academic researcher based at one of the following types of BC institutions: (1) post-secondary institutions or their affiliated hospitals or research institutes; or (2) laboratories of federal government departments or agencies,* including regional health authorities. Industry partnership is welcome.

*Researchers at BC Provincial government labs are not eligible for this program since Genome BC funds cannot flow to BC Provincial government organizations.

Genome BC has committed an investment of up to $1M to the competition. Ventures will provide access to the data and the IHID analytic environment through reduced service fees specific to this program.

The program parameters are as follows:

Co-funding (matching funds) is not required;
The allowable project budget is up to $250,000 of which between $75,000 and $150,000 needs to be allocated towards the use of the IHID. Please contact DAIA@genomebc.ca to obtain the budget template for estimating the IHID cost;
The allowable project term is up to 12 months

There is a two-stage application process for this program:

Statement of Interest (SOI) outlining the scope of the proposed project to assess its eligibility and help identify reviewers; and
Application providing full details of the research plan with an accompanying budget.

Statements of Interest and applications must be submitted directly to Genome BC at DAIA@genomebc.ca.

The following table provides timelines for the DAIA program.

Activity	Date
Launch of Program	1 June 2022
Deadline for submission of Statements of Interests (SOIs) to Genome BC	6 July 2022
Applicants notified of the decision for their SOI(s) Eligible Applicants will be invited to submit an application	14 July 2022
Deadline for submission of Applications to Genome BC	25 August 2022
Notification of Results	5 December 2022
Anticipated start date for successful projects	1 April 2023

Genome BC Programs

Data Access, Integration and Analysis Program