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Moving from Vision to Implementation in federated ICU Research

Publiced on:

March 27, 2026

We’re gathered in Brussels for the INDICATE Design Workshop – a two-day event bringing together hospitals, technical experts, clinicians and communication advisors from across Europe. INDICATE is building a federated data infrastructure for intensive care data. That means: collaborating on better care and research, without patient data ever leaving a single hospital.

Day 1 ‘Understanding the data provider journey’

  • Jan van den Brand walked us through the INDICATE mission – why federated ICU data matters for European healthcare and also through the Onboarding Blueprint – the journey from commitment to production
  • Bert Cappelle gave a detailed and inspiring live demo on how to conduct a study with federated data within the INDICATE platform

The afternoon was hands-on: data providers and guests worked through a stakeholder mapping exercise, identifying who is needed to implement INDICATE within a hospital and whether those stakeholders can actually be named today. This was followed by a data provider gap analysis focused on for example identity and access management.

This year we are making the shift from concept to implementation in real hospital environments. That takes collaboration, honesty about challenges, and a willingness to learn from each other. And that’s what we did today!

Day 2 ‘What does it actually take to onboard a hospital as a data provider?’

During day 2 of the INDICATE Design Workshop we spent the day working through what it actually takes to onboard a hospital as a data provider: not in theory, but in practice. 

What does the onboarding journey look like? What do data providers need to implement INDICATE in their organisation, who to get involved? During the day we challenged ourselves to rethink the onboarding process and follow up steps from a data provider perspective – At the end of the day, all attending data providers had developed an actionable implementation roadmap for the next three months. 

One principle that kept coming back: patient data never leaves the hospital. That’s not just a technical design choice, it’s the foundation of trust that makes the federated data network possible.

Next meeting? On Monday March 30 the INDICATE Training Programme on Data Enablement & Data Model will start! We look forward to welcoming you to the session!

Thanks to all who actively participated in person and online!

Celia Alvarez-Romero (Servicio Andaluz de Salud), Marcel Giemsa (Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf), Bert Cappelle (UZ Gent), Christian Jung (Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf), Kirsten Colpaert (UZ Gent), Maurizio Cecconi (ESICM), Anouk Kruiswijk (KPMG), Maaike van Zuilen (Erasmus MC – philogirl), Maarten Ligtenberg (Cradeq), Daniel Laxar (Medical University of Vienna), Maria Theodorakopoulou (Hellenic Society of Intensive Care Medicine (HSICM), Maurice Walny (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Joost Schotsman (UMC Utrecht), Rachit Gupta (KPMG), Maxim Moinat (Erasmus MC), Irene Gebuis (philogirl), Alexander Lang, Nils Woge, Kai Marten Vogl, Daniel Wetzler, Lorenz Kapral, Natalja Zilinski.

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