Project based learning in Biomedical Data Science using the MIMIC III open dataset

The subjects Health Information Systems and Telemedicine and Data Quality and Interoperability of the Degree and Master in Biomedical Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, address learning outcomes related to managing and processing biomedical databases, using health information standards for data capture and exchange, data quality assessment, and developing machine-learning models from these data. These learning outcomes cover a large range of distinct activities in the biomedical data life-cycle, what may hinder the learning process in the limited time assigned for the subject. We propose a project based learning approach addressing the full life-cycle of biomedical data on the MIMIC-III (Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III) Open Dataset, a freely accessible database comprising information relating to patients admitted to critical care units. By means of this active learning approach, students can achieve all the learning outcomes of the subject in an integrated manner: understanding the MIMIC-III data model, using health information standards such as International Classification of Diseases 9th Edition (ICD-9), mapping to interoperability standards, querying data, creating data tables and addressing data quality towards applying reliable statistical and machine learning analysis and, developing predictive models for several tasks such as predicting in-hospital mortality. MIMIC-III is widely used in the academia and science, with a large amount of publicly available resources and scientific articles to support the students learning. Additionally, the students will gain new competences in the use of Open Data and Research Ethics and Compliance Training.