Metadata Inventory for Medical Researchers

In addition to the primary purpose of procuring organs and tissues for transplantation, most organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the United States procure a large number of samples for the purpose of research. These samples are provided to researchers along with a few additional non-protected health information (PHI) data points to facilitate better matching for various comparative experiments.

During the last 3 decades, the Donor Network West Data Team has meticulously collected and archived a huge array of data points from all donors called Donor Network West Metadata Inventory (DNWMI). The data inventory includes but is not limited to Medical/Social history, complete blood count (CBC), donation after cardiac death (DCD) information, DCD evaluation results, blood culture results, and arterial blood gas (ABG). In fact, the total number of data points collected at DNWMI has reached more than one billion points. Performing analytics on big data collected under DNWMI enables data scientists from a variety of disciplines to uncover novel patterns, correlations, and gain insights in data with significant predictive value. In order to provide a better description of the nature of data points collected at DNWMI in each category, the original blank forms have been provided in this page. There is no doubt that accessing secure and non-PHI data would provide scientists an unprecedented opportunity to analyze our metadata for predictive and analytic research among many others.

Researchers from academic and non-profit organizations in the United States are encouraged to apply to access DNWMI. The application process is similar to the request for tissue samples in terms of evaluation and rigor. Once the project is evaluated for adherence to ethical and legal guidelines and is approved by the Donor Network West Medical Advisory Board, the investigators will be given the opportunity to build their queries for searching DNWMI.