Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena

The Innovation and Data Analysis Unit of Virgen Macarena University Hospital focuses on the use of health data, digital technologies, and advanced data analytic approaches to support research, innovation, and high quality healthcare. We aim to improve patient health, support clinical decision-making, enhance the efficiency of healthcare services, and contribute to the sustainability of the healthcare system.

Our unit is in a unique position to both develop digital health solutions and exploit the clinical data generated within the hospital. We work closely with clinical services and research groups in the hospital and collaborate with Primary Care centres within our reference area. This combination of technological capabilities, access to real world healthcare data, and close collaboration with healthcare professionals enables us to develop and implement solutions that respond to real clinical and organisational needs. Our main lines of research are:

• Health Data Spaces and Secondary Use of Health Data: Participation in national and European initiatives such as OHSIRIS, IDERHA, and EUCAIM, focused on secure, federated access to health data for research and innovation.

• Real World Data exploitation: We are involved in multiple research projects focused on predictive modelling and data analysis in which we are leveraging the EHR data generated in our hospital (1.5 million patients) and our Regional Health System (10 million patients). Our unit also has significant expertise and dedicated tools for automatically linking socioeconomic and environmental exposure data from open data sources to individual patients based on their home address.

• Digital Health and Research Platforms: We have developed an internal platform to support biomedical research that enables electronic data capture, patient recruitment and follow-up, mobile health interventions, research data management, and secure processing of sensitive health data, including local AI/LLM capabilities.