Premier Clinical Genomics Informatics Environment at the Ai² Campus
Ai², the Accelerator for Informatics Innovation in Libertyville IL, will offer a premier and sustainable clinical genomics informatics environment for informatics innovators wishing to speed the development and testing of their genomics innovations.
The lack of EHR capabilities to handle the massive amounts of data generated by next-generation sequencing is increasingly being addressed by storing genomic data outside the EHR, in genomic data servers, or Genomic Archiving and Communication Systems (GACS). A GACS stores sequence data generated from a sequencing laboratory and is analogous in many ways to a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), which stores image files not suitable to store directly in an EHR.
The Ai² GACS environment is cloud-hosted and has a fully functional FHIR API that is based on an “On-Demand FHIR Translator” model. It features a prototype SMART-on-FHIR App that can be used to demonstrate how the cloud-hosted FHIR-enabled GACS application supports real clinical scenarios.
The system includes a database of genomic and clinical resources that can be used to further research and collaboration. The Ai² GACS is populated with real but anonymized genomic data downloaded from the 1000 Genomes project. This data is coupled with synthetic EHR data (problems, medications, etc.) derived from Synthea project.
Sustainability of the Ai² GACS environment is enabled by housing all source code in a public repository on github. This allows contributors to make code enhancements, which can then be re-incorporated, and allows other national and international collaborators to contribute through a variety of projects.
The Ai² GACS can be used to train the next generation of informaticists in genomics-EHR integration — not just for didactic learning, but also for hands-on exploration, including coding. Tools can then be readily migrated into a production environment and used for patient care. For more information, contact admin@leapoffaith.com