New Computational Audiology Network working group on data standards
Contact: Dr. Mareike Buhl, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany
Motivation
Data standards provide a means to harmonize data formats, to enhance structured documentation and, thus, combining and reusing data. In audiology, data from clinical routine, research studies or hearing device data logging yield a large potential to be exploited with artificial intelligence, but differences in audiological tests and conditions, data formats or quality hinder data exchange and combination. Accessible, interoperable Big Audiological Data would enable precise analysis and prediction, with the potential to advance research and patient care.
Mission
The working group represents the topic of data standards for audiology in the Computational Audiology Network, and aims to be an overarching platform representing different existing approaches to data standards and research towards this. The main goals are to:
- Facilitate collaborative data analysis and exchange
- Create a space for community exchange on data, analysis tools and data standards modelling
- Find collaborators for joint projects and grant applications
This page will be expanded step by step towards a collection of useful resources and presentations of initiatives and projects. If you have a suitable example to showcase and would like to present it here, please contact me!
Projects and initiatives
openEHR data standards modelling
The EFAS working group Data Formats for Big Data in Audiology is currently developing data standards using the openEHR modelling approach. One of the essential features of openEHR is the community involvement – audiological data models (archetypes) are reviewed by professionals with content expertise.
Currently, the data model for the tone audiogram is available for review in the Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM). To incorporate as many perspectives as possible, we invite everyone to participate in the review (steps and links see figure).