FAIR Specifications for FAIR German Routine Care Data in Research

Aiming to develop strategies and infrastructure for close collaboration between healthcare and research, the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) established a common infrastructure connecting German university hospitals and their partners. To foster interoperability across the heterogeneous sites, a health data specification was created, the MII Core Data Set (CDS), standardising the representation of clinical routine data intended for reuse in research. Findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) specifications are applied more efficiently. Exemplified by MII CDS modules, we demonstrate how health data specifications can be made FAIR and discuss benefits and costs involved. As the CDS defines how clinical routine data is exchanged in Germany, we implemented a multi-step FAIRifciation workflow and extended the MII CDS module implementation guide accordingly. We summarised lessons learned in a guideline and propose to reduce the number of FAIR indicators when assessing health data specifications. In summary, our results ease future FAIRification of MII CDS modules and similar health data specifications, thus contributing to the generation of FAIR health research data from those specifications.