BRISSKit: Connecting Researchers With Clinical Data

The UK government is starting to recognise the value of data to the economy and is developing policy that aims to realise that worth. One of the largest and, potentially, most useful repositories of information in the country is the NHS, housing vast quantities of patient data with myriad applications. Government policy is beginning to increase the amount of clinical data that is exposed to biomedical researchers; however, the difficulty of accessing information whilst respecting the boundaries of patient privacy is hampering vital progress.

These are the issues being addressed by the University of Leicester’s Biomedical Research Infrastructure Software Service (BRISSKit) project team. The BRISSKit is an integrated, modular, open-source platform providing bench-to-bedside support for clinicians and researchers working with biomedical data. The components enable connection of electronic patient records with clinical data and tissue sample handling data while the database architecture allows anonymised versions of sensitive data to be hosted for university researchers. Instances of the platform can be run locally or from the cloud, providing the system with flexibility and scalability.