The Spanish Healthcare IT Society (Sociedad Española de Informática de la salud: SEIS) has hailed the work of the HARMONY project in its 24th National Healthcare and IT Awards. The prize was picked up by the project coordinator, Jesús María Hernández, hematology and hemotherapy specialist in the Hematology Service of the University Hospital of Salamanca and chair-holding professor of Salamanca University.

In the doctor’s words “HARMONY is still a work in progress, as yet only approaching its halfway mark, but it is already beginning to come up with significant results. Prime among them is the setting-up and fine-tuning of a Big Data platform that has harmonized data of the commonest hematological malignancies. Right now the platform is storing data of public and private initiatives and the data input rate is expected to step up considerably in the first half of this year. Six research proposals have now been approved and a forum has also been set up with the participation of all hematological malignancy interlocutors”.

Hernández highlighted the patient contribution in the project, all of whom were guaranteed GDPR-compliant data privacy, likewise observing Spain’s recent new data-protection law (Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos de carácter personal). Thanks to GMV’s data-protection work right from the start of the project, HARMONY was presented in 2018 in Spain’s Lower House (Congreso de los Diputados) and the European Parliament.

GMV’s Big Data expertise, guaranteeing the privacy and protection of patients’ data, will enable researchers to draw up a European map of hematological tumors. This will help to fast track the development and marketing of new, groundbreaking treatment and drugs for the application of high-precision medicine and ensure further headway towards the achievement of personalized therapy.

As well as HARMONY, SEIS also awarded prizes in the 2018 awards to the following: Directorate General of Research, Innovation, Technology and Quality of Valencia’s Regional Ministry of Public Health and Universal Healthcare; HM Hospitales; Grupo Hospitalario HLA; the Biomedical IT Group (Grupo Informática Biomédica: GIB) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the Health Services of the Canary Islands and Murcia.