Reaching the 15.000th BROAD CONSENT signature in Dresden AND Roll-out of the BROAD CONSENT of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) at the Dresden University Medical Center as the SOLE consent document

The MII-site Dresden passed the 15.000 mark of Broad Consent-signatures at the beginning of February 2025. UKD thus reached another decisive milestone since the establishment of Broad Consent in 2018 and remains one of the leading German university hospitals.

At the beginning of the new year 2025, the MII-Broad Consent was also introduced as the ONLY comprehensive declaration of consent for patients at UKD. From now on, the MII-BC will replace all other consent documents with the same content.

In view of these developments, the Center for Medical Informatics (ZMI) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Martin Sedlmayr and the Independent Trustee Office of UKD under the direction of Philipp Heinrich invited to the event “Roll-Out of the Broad Consent of the Medical Informatics Initiative”:

The hybrid event took place on the UKD-campus on February 7. Numerous interested researchers and physicians were introduced to the BC live on site or via online connection and informed about the extensive roll-out:

The new Medical Director of the UKD, Prof. Dr. Uwe Platzbecker, opened the event and emphasized the UKD's stance: “We are fully behind the MII and the BC.” It also became clear that the hospital expects an even more rapid increase in signatures following the new Board resolution.

Prof. Dr. Martin Sedlmayr introduced the scientists to the background of the MII and the BC, presented the next steps for the clinic-wide roll-out of the BC and explained to the researchers the advantages of uniform consent throughout the clinic.

Philipp Heinrich, Head of the Independent Trustee Office at UKD, summarized the contents of the broad consent form, especially for clinicians who are not yet familiar with the BC, provided information about the various MII information materials and the various information channels for patients at the UKD and described the function of the Trustee Office within the administration of the BC and the pseudonymizations.

The presentation by Dr. Heidi Altmann, Head of BioBank Dresden (BBD), emphasized the BBD as a clinically integrated biobank, tissue bank and liquid biobank and thus presented the role of biobanks within the BC of the MII and the associated importance of biosamples.

The lecture on the Dresden Ethics Commission, presented by Julia Steinigen-Fuchs, Head of the EC-office at the TU Dresden, shed light on both the former role of the EC in the introduction of the MII-BC at the UKD in 2018 and its role in the current large-scale roll-out, highlighting the ethical issues involved.

All speakers emphasized the need for close cooperation between various structural units for a successful roll-out and broad acceptance of the BC among patients.

A lively round of questions and discussions afterwards was welcomed by the clinicians and rounded off the event.