Accessing the public MIMIC-II intensive care relational database for clinical research

Daniel J Scott,George B Moody,Roger G Mark,Leo A Celi,Joon Lee,Shinhyuk Park,Ikaro Silva

doi:10.1186/1472-6947-13-9

Abstract

BackgroundThe Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II (MIMIC-II) database is a free, public resource for intensive care research. The database was officially released in 2006, and has attracted a growing number of researchers in academia and industry. We present the two major software tools that facilitate accessing the relational database: the web-based QueryBuilder and a downloadable virtual machine (VM) image.ResultsQueryBuilder and the MIMIC-II VM have been developed successfully and are freely available to MIMIC-II users. Simple example SQL queries and the resulting data are presented. Clinical studies pertaining to acute kidney injury and prediction of fluid requirements in the intensive care unit are shown as typical examples of research performed with MIMIC-II. In addition, MIMIC-II has also provided data for annual PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenges, including the 2012 Challenge “Predicting mortality of ICU Patients”.ConclusionsQueryBuilder is a web-based tool that provides easy access to MIMIC-II. For more computationally intensive queries, one can locally install a complete copy of MIMIC-II in a VM. Both publicly available tools provide the MIMIC-II research community with convenient querying interfaces and complement the value of the MIMIC-II relational database.

Highlights

The Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II (MIMIC-II) database is a free, public resource for intensive care research
protected health information (PHI), nor free text, nor any data from recently living individuals, they are exempt from Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) restrictions, and interested researchers may download them freely. Both QueryBuilder and the MIMIC-II virtual machine (VM) are currently available to MIMIC-II users free of charge
A link to QueryBuilder, the downloadable VM image, as well as related documentation and instructions for gaining access are available on PhysioNet

Summary

Introduction

The Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II (MIMIC-II) database is a free, public resource for intensive care research. The Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care II (MIMIC-II) database [1] (http://physionet.org/ mimic2) is a public research archive of data collected from patients in intensive care units (ICUs). MIMIC-II has been fully deidentified in a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant manner and is available free of charge for public use, subject to completion of an appropriate online human-subjects training course and signing of a data use agreement. The data comprising MIMIC-II was collected at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, USA from patients who were admitted from 2001 to 2008. The available clinical information includes: patient demographics, laboratory test results, vital sign recordings, fluid and medication records, charted parameters and free-text reports such as nursing notes, imaging reports and discharge summaries. The requirement for individual patient consent was waived because clinical care was not affected and all protected health information (PHI) was deidentified

Results

Discussion

Conclusion