GIMI (Generic Infrastructure for Medical Informatics) is funded through the DTI's Technology Programme. The main aim of the project is to develop a generic, dependable middleware layer capable of: (in the short term) supporting data sharing across disparate sources to facilitate healthcare research, delivery, and training; (in the medium term) facilitating data access via dynamic, fine-grained access control mechanisms; and (in the longer-term) interfacing with technological solutions deployed within the National Health Service. The aim of the project give rise to two distinct, but complementary, technologies:sif (service-oriented interoperability framework), and evolving, fine-grained access control. The first is aimed at researchers, application developers and domain specialists; the second is aimed at data owners; together, they give rise to a three-tiered system. The development of the underlying technology is being driven by the needs of three applications: the self-management of patients with long-term conditions; an auditing and training package for breast radiologists; and image analysis algorithms for cancer care.
