• Sax U: From the bench to the bedside gridwise: MediGRID
• Knoch TA: Ressource Sharing on the Teraflop Scale for the BioMedical research and care sector - The Erasmus Computing Grid and MediGRID
• Dickmann F: Services@MediGRID: Business cases for research and healthcare industry
• Stroetmann K: Business models and sustainability of HealthGrid solutions
• Semler SC: Community Building and Dissemination for HealthGrids

From the bench to the bedside gridwise: MediGRID

Ulrich Sax, PhD, MediGRID

Vice Head of MediGRID, Assistant Professor in Medical Informatics, University Medicine Göttingen, Germany

    1,2 MB

Short overview of current German grid activities in diverse communities from Astrophysics to Climate Research focussing on the Infrastructure and MediGRID:

1. overall goals of MediGRID
2. achieved pilot scenarios
3. strategies on how to overcome the roadblocks in further dissemination of medical grid computing:
• What are the current applications fields for health grids in Germany - Results from the pilot scenarios
• How to overcome the main road blocks for the further dissemination of health grids beyond basic research into healthcare and healthcare industry
• Usability vs. Security vs. Acceptance
• Tackling the Security Issues: certificate Trouble to fine grained access control

Ressource Sharing on the Teraflop Scale for the BioMedical research and care sector - The Erasmus Computing Grid and MediGRID

Tobias A. Knoch, PhD, MediGRID

Assistant Professor in Biophysical Genomics, Dept. Cell Biology & Genetics, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Biophysical Genomics, Kirchhoff Institute of Physics, Ruperto-Carola University Heidelberg, Germany

    5,8 MB

Today advances in scientific research as well as clinical diagnostics and treatment are inevitably connected with information solutions concerning computation power and information storage. The needs for information technology are enormous and are in many cases the limiting factor for new scientific results or clinical diagnostics and treatment. At the same time huge computing and storage resources (e.g. ~109 personal computers in the private, public, and industrial domains) have been installed which outweigh the resources at high-performance computing centers ~50-100 times and thus could contribute to the challenges mankind faces.
 Both the Erasmus Computing Grid (ECG) and the MediGRID are two major working resource-sharing entities at public funded organizations. To build these infrastructures two e-social influences had to be overcome:
i) the sharing attitude and socialization of the individual, i.e. the micro-sociality, and
ii) the organization culture of the embedding institution, i.e. the macro-sociality, as e.g. for the ECG the public funded organizations. Operationally, an these factors were adressed by:
i) the participative integration of fundamental IT applications of major users, and
ii) the setup of an open and sustainable management structure.

Business cases for research and healthcare industry

Frank Dickmann, Services@MediGRIDGrid

Coordinator and Researcher within Services@MediGRID, Business Informatics and Medical Informatics Background, University Medicine Goettingen, Germany

    0,8 MB

The Services@MediGRID consortium tries to close the gap between grid research and grid application in research and healthcare related industry. Therefore new business models have to be developed and evaluated as well in research as in industry settings. This requires some additional software packages like accounting and provisioning for the grid. We report first experiences and give an outlook on the project.

Business models and sustainability of HealthGrid solutions

Karl A. Stroetmann, PhD, MediGRID

Empirica Communication and Technology Research, Bonn, Germany

    86 kB

In a satellite study to the MediGRID project commissioned by the Telematics Platform Medical Research Networks (TMF), Berlin, Germany, empirica performed a study on business cases and sustainability of HealthGrid projects. The investigation of international (mainly European) HealthGrid projects about business models and sustainability uncovers a sceptical short term perspective with reasons for more optimism in the longer run. Public involvement will be necessary and should be expected to help sustain a useful infrastructure. The economic case for HealthGrids is robust, which supports that claim and is also the basis for optimism.
The current process of shaping a more comprehensive legal and regulatory foundation for the use of ICT in different application fields, including medical and clinical research, health, and healthcare, will lower the hurdles related to uncertainly about data protection and security, IPR, and ethical issues. Usability and acceptability issues will be more difficult to solve, yet are by no means unmanageable. Positive examples referred to in this presentation show that efforts towards addressing the most significant hurdle – the discrepancy between social benefits and private incentives – are also underway. The fruits of these efforts, however, will take a longer time to ripe and deliver the longed-for sustainability of HealthGrids.

Community Building and Dissemination for HealthGrids

Sebastian C. Semler, MediGRID

Scientific Manager of the Telematics Platform Medical Research Networks (TMF), Berlin, Germany

    0,4 MB