Nearly 6000 patients registered as Imperial Health Knowledge Bank opens to researcher applications
Researchers can now apply to access a biomedical research resource containing health information and samples of over 5700 Imperial College Healthcare patients.
Imperial Health Knowledge Bank offers every patient the opportunity to take part in research. It is a database of patients who are willing to be contacted directly about clinical trials and studies that could be relevant for them and who have agreed for the Trust to collect and store their health information and samples for research, including blood samples.
Applications are now open for researchers who wish to invite patients in the database to participate in a research study, or to have access to the data and samples for research studies that could improve care or even lead to new treatments.
Researchers will need to explain their project in detail and access will be considered by a monthly committee made up of patient representatives, clinicians and academics, who will jointly determine if proposed research projects are an appropriate use of data, ethically sound and in the wider public interest.
Launched in April, a successful pilot of the Imperial Health Knowledge Bank saw patients invited to participate via text message from clinics across the Trust. Once patient agree to take part, they are added to the database of people who are interested in taking part in future health research. The system automatically pulls information from their medical notes, collected as part of their routine care including details of their conditions, medicines they are taking or treatments they may have, as well as their outcomes.
5400 of the 5700 patients who have registered have also consented to provide a blood sample for the Knowledge Bank at their next routine appointment. This is ordered automatically and requires no additional visits to hospital.
Director of the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, which funds Imperial Health Knowledge Bank, Professor Mark Thursz, said: “It is promising to see that the Imperial Health Knowledge Bank has been so warmly received by our diverse community of patients in the last few months, meaning that we can now offer a rich source of real-world data to potential researchers. We hope the findings from these future studies can play a significant role in the development of new treatments, drugs and tests that could have a huge impact on the lives of others.”
The NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre is a translational research partnership between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London, which was awarded £95m in 2022 to continue developing new experimental treatments and diagnostics for patients.
To find out more or apply to access Imperial Health Knowledge Bank, please contact imperial.healthknowledgebank@nhs.net
Find out more about Imperial Health Knowledge Bank.
