LETTING HEALTH DATA TALK

Under the direction of Dr. Michaël Chassé, an intensive-care physician at the CHUM, the CHUM Centre for the Integration and Analysis of Medical Data (CITADEL) has emerged as a major centre of expertise.

Nearly 4 million pieces of patient data and 20 million episodes of care are stored in this facility, unlike any other in Quebec. More than 20 information systems are integrated within it.

CITADEL was set up and developed at the CRCHUM in a joint initiative with the Consortium en santé numérique de l’Université de Montréal.

In this context, the CITADEL team maintains a special relationship with the artificial intelligence specialists of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms or MILA, which grew out of a collaboration between the Université de Montréal and McGill University.

Our researchers can therefore take advantage of algorithms developed via artificial intelligence‑machine learning and neural networks‑to find answers to their research questions.

By harnessing and analyzing all this data, the CITADEL team, made up of a dozen data science specialists, enables more than 80 projects to be carried out and ultimately improve the health of the population.

Through the EVIDENS platform, owned by its partner Imagia, one of Canada’s largest artificial intelligence health care companies, the CHUM collaborates with two other Montreal hospitals on a lung cancer project that makes use of machine learning.

This type of technology allows computers to use algorithms to analyze large data sets (X‑ray images, pathology, laboratory reports, etc.) and make predictions. For this project, the idea is to find the treatment best suited to each patient, choosing from chemotherapy or immunotherapy, for example.



We attach the utmost importance to the protection of privacy, data confidentiality and access to data. For more information, see the CITADEL’s management framework document.

A provincial standard‑bearer

The CITADEL team plays a crucial role in the “Structuring initiative on databases and biobanks of hospitals” project that emerged from the National Table of Directors of Research of the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux. At the provincial level, it offers to guide other health care institutions in organizing and structuring hospital data for research purposes in order to increase research capacity and facilitate the emergence of new knowledge that will benefit the people of Quebec.