At the end of the year, we are once again providing a new set of releases for the community. As usual, the release notes list details about new functionalities, general improvements and bug fixes.

In E-PIX, in addition to minor bug fixes and the acceleration of the dashboard, additional information on the data source and duplicate type is now available in the dialog for resolving duplicates and in the person details.

In gPAS, the export mechanics have been improved to allow data to be exported from domains with more than 100,000 entries without having to adjust the configuration of the application server. We have also taken the opportunity to correct the bugs reported by you in border areas and in the calculation of pseudonym lengths.

There have been significant changes in the area of consents: it is now possible to automatically expire signed consents from minors when they reach the age of 18. If necessary, connected systems are automatically notified of this event and the expiry of the corresponding policies.

We have also considerably simplified the options for integrating gICS into other systems. All the necessary parameters of a consent can be individualized and transmitted to the gICS via URL. The gICS is therefore app-ready, so to speak. In this way, consent or revocations can be documented in gICS directly via smartphone or tablet PC. The whole thing can of course be secured using Keycloak and does not require an additional dispatcher. Try it and scan the adjacent QR code.

The HL7-D Consent Management working group has been very active in recent months and has significantly revised the FHIR consent standard with regard to opt-in and opt-out. This means that not only consent is now taken into account as before, but also revocations, objections and much more. Previously, there were also no clear specifications for the extraction of completed consent documents (questionnaire responses) and the mapping of this content to machine-readable consent resources. The new categorization of consent resources is also essential in practice. In this way, the character of a consent resource (“consent-status”, “document” or “policy”) can be defined.

We have already adapted our implementation in line with the new HL7-D specifications. The implementation is primarily based on HL7-D specifications and is independent of the specific research projects. By the way, the HL7 balloting has started today. Join in!

At the same time, we are keeping an eye on current developments in the context of the MII: The MII core dataset base module Consent was updated yesterday (version 2025.0.0) and published. We are already compatible.

A correspondingly compatible dispatcher release will follow next year. Final tests are currently underway. Dispatcher users will be informed by e-mail as usual.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again, because it is the detailed queries and your suggestions that constantly confront us with new aspects of our work and allow us to continuously improve our THS solution modules.

We wish you a relaxing and restful Christmas and look forward to the coming year 2025 and the Community Dialog in January.