Retrospectively collected medical data has the opportunity to improve patient care through knowledge discovery and algorithm development. Broad reuse of medical data is desirable for the greatest public good, but data sharing must be done in a manner which protects patient privacy.
The Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-III database provided critical care data for over 40,000 patients admitted to intensive care units at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). Importantly, MIMIC-III was deidentified, and patient identifiers were removed according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Safe Harbor provision. MIMIC-III has been integral in driving large amounts of research in clinical informatics, epidemiology, and machine learning. Here we present MIMIC-IV, an update to MIMIC-III, which incorporates contemporary data and improves on numerous aspects of MIMIC-III. MIMIC-IV adopts a modular approach to data organization, highlighting data provenance and facilitating both individual and combined use of disparate data sources. MIMIC-IV is intended to carry on the success of MIMIC-III and support a broad set of applications within healthcare.
