title: A modular informatics platform for effective support of collaborative and multicenter studies in cardiology.
abstract: Collaborative and multicenter studies permit a large number of patients to be enrolled within a reasonable time and providing the opportunity to collect different data. Informatics platforms play an important role in management, storage, and exchange of data between the participants involved in the study. In this article, we describe a modular informatics platform designed and developed to support collaborative and multicenter studies in cardiology. In each developed module, data management is implemented following local defined protocols. The modular characteristic of the developed platform allows independent transfer of different kinds of data, such as biological samples, imaging raw data, and patients' digital information. Moreover, it offers safe central storage of the data collected during the study. The developed platform was successfully tested during a European collaborative and multicenter study, focused on evaluating multimodal non-invasive imaging to diagnose and characterize ischemic heart disease.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy martina.marinelli@ifc.cnr.it.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marinelli
authors.affiliation: Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Positano
authors.affiliation: Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy.
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lorenzoni
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caselli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy; Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mangione
authors.affiliation: Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marcheschi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.|Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.|Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy; Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Puzzuoli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.affiliation: Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe Andrea
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: L'Abbate
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Italy; Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Italy.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Neglia
mesh_terms: D002309:Cardiology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003628:Database Management Systems / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D066275:Health Information Exchange / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D012109:Research Support as Topic / Q000379:methods*
keywords: collaborative work practices and IT; databases and data mining; electronic health records; information and knowledge management; medical imaging