title: Accessing the public MIMIC-II intensive care relational database for clinical research.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II (MIMIC-II) database is a free, public resource for intensive care research. The database was officially released in 2006, and has attracted a growing number of researchers in academia and industry. We present the two major software tools that facilitate accessing the relational database: the web-based QueryBuilder and a downloadable virtual machine (VM) image.
  
  
  RESULTS
  QueryBuilder and the MIMIC-II VM have been developed successfully and are freely available to MIMIC-II users. Simple example SQL queries and the resulting data are presented. Clinical studies pertaining to acute kidney injury and prediction of fluid requirements in the intensive care unit are shown as typical examples of research performed with MIMIC-II. In addition, MIMIC-II has also provided data for annual PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenges, including the 2012 Challenge "Predicting mortality of ICU Patients".
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  QueryBuilder is a web-based tool that provides easy access to MIMIC-II. For more computationally intensive queries, one can locally install a complete copy of MIMIC-II in a VM. Both publicly available tools provide the MIMIC-II research community with convenient querying interfaces and complement the value of the MIMIC-II relational database.
authors.affiliation: Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Joon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Ikaro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: Shinhyuk
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: George B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Moody
authors.forename: Leo A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Celi
authors.forename: Roger G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Mark
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D035843:Biomedical Research; D003422:Critical Care; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface