Bylaws

• Development and operation of a shared platform for health services research for professionals based on IVENA referral data.
• Targeted access to referral data from one’s own emergency department.
• Benchmarking against anonymized clusters of emergency departments.
• Use for quality assurance within one’s own hospital.
• Addressing overarching scientific questions in the context of health services research.

• The platform is based on referral data exported from IVENA by the participating hospitals.
• Participants import this referral data into the platform’s central database, thereby making it available for use via the platform. The data can only be accessed via a web application.
• Analyses are generated from this database in accordance with the objectives listed above.

Participation

• Any hospital involved in emergency care that uses IVENA for patient referrals may participate.
• Participation is via personalized user accounts with one primary contact per hospital.
• To join the project, the participating hospital must import data covering at least the last 3 calendar years prior to the start of participation.
• Participation does not grant direct access to the raw data in the database; however, it is possible to export filtered data sets pertaining to one’s own hospital.
• Conducting analyses for competitive comparisons between individual hospitals or competitors based on this platform is generally not permitted. The purpose of such analyses must be to answer specific questions related to quality assurance or emergency medical care research.
• Within the scope of benchmarking, a comparison with anonymous clusters of hospitals is permitted, provided that a sufficient number (at least 3) are available.

• In response to requests from research institutions - such as universities, government agencies, or individuals working in health services research or at relevant government agencies - an extract from the data may be made available for specific questions related to emergency medical care research.
• To do this a specific application must be submitted to the Board. The details of the application process are regulated separately.

Administration

• This platform is administered by the Board of the “DGINA Hesse Regional Group’s Working Group on Health Services Research,” which consists of the initiators of this project. 
• Major decisions are made by a simple majority vote.
• Should a member resign from the Board, the remaining members shall appoint a successor as needed by majority vote.
• The members of the Board are:
  • Rudolf Alexander Alexi
  • Andreas Jerrentrup
  • Daniel Kersten
  • Patrick Müller-Nolte
  • Jens Christoph Steltner
  • Klaus Weber