Blog from July, 2020

CodeX / mCODE Update: July 2020
Steve Bratt posted on Jul 14, 2020

Dear CodeX Community


Since our last update on mCODE and CodeX, the world has changed dramatically.  I hope you and yours are safe. 


If you are on reading this, you also understand the impact that cancer has on those close to and far from you and yours. You understand the potential for a common language for cancer data to improve cancer care, research and policy, and to reduce burden and cost.


Here is an abbreviated summary of the substantial progress over the past 4 months:

mCODE Standard

  • The mCODE 1.0 FHIR Implementation Guide (IG) officially became an HL7 Standard for Trial Use on March 18th.  This is a big deal.  It signals to vendors and other implementers that mCODE is stable and ready for developers to kick the tires. We are already seeing vendors implementing this version of mCODE.


Building the CodeX Community

  • Many thanks to our Founding CodeX members, so far! A number of other organizations are in the process of joining. CodeX members drive development and execution of Use-Case-Based Projects and support sustainable program management for the vibrant community that CodeX aims to be.  Due to challenges that many are facing, and in response to requests, we’ve extended the deadline for organizations to be Founders until the end of 2020.  Our first member meeting/call is being planned for August or September.  Please email me, Steve Bratt (sbratt@mitre.org),  if you’d to like to become a CodeX member and drive the future of smarter data for the fight against cancer.


  • The CodeX / mCODE Community of Practice (CoP) has been an amazing forum. The CoP open the public as a place for sharing updates on CodeX use case projects, as well as sharing independent initiatives that organizations are conducting with mCODE as their lingua franca. To receive notices about future CoP calls, go to the CodeX home page, click on "Join a CodeX Listserv" (upper right side of home page), and add your name and organization to the CoP and other email lists.

Use Case Projects

  • The most advanced of our CodeX projects is “Integrated Trial Matching for Cancer Patients and Providers”.  Phase 0 – a Proof of Concept using only mCODE data elements – is nearly complete. The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, Cancer Insights, TrialScope, BreastCancerTrials.org, MITRE and others are collaborating to enable mCODE-based, interoperable, scalable, and accessible clinical trial matching services that give patients and their providers maximum visibility into reasonable trial matches. The next public meeting and demonstration is scheduled for September 16, 2020 at 1PM ET. Register here.


  • Use Cases in the Planning Phase include Registry Reporting, Radiation Therapy Treatment Data, and Clinical Pathways / Prior Authorization Support.   We are working with current and prospective members and partners to develop plans that include identified stakeholders, short phases, clear objectives and deliverables, and measures of success.  Expect announcements on some of these over the next 2 months.

  

Synthetic mCODE Data for Testing and Demos

  • Finally, we all know the importance of data to developing and demonstrating functional software and workflows to support use cases. Real patient data is best, but has limitations due to PHI/PII.  Perhaps the most advance synthetic patient health record generator is Synthea™ an open-source patient population simulation made available by The MITRE Corporation.  We’ve used Synthea to generate 2200 synthetic mCODE records for patients with a focus on breast cancer. Please have a look, and let us know what you think. We are working to generate additional records for synthetic patients with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL), so that we will have a test data appropriate for hematologic cancers and CAR-T therapies. 


Looking forward to your questions and participation in our shared mission.


Best regards,


Steve

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Steven R. Bratt, Ph.D.

Leader, CodeX HL7 FHIR Accelerator https://bit.ly/3b6DHlD