INSIGHT - Our Hub for Eye Health

About us

• What we do

  INSIGHT are focused on eye health and wider health issues connected to the eye, including diabetes and dementia. We will make anonymised, large-scale data, initially from Moorfields Eye Hospital and University Hospitals Birmingham, available for patient-focussed research. The data includes various types of eye imaging and associated patient health records. Using advanced analytics, such as artificial intelligence (AI), INSIGHT will allow researchers to develop new insights in disease detection, diagnosis, treatments and personalised healthcare.

  INSIGHT will use the latest digital tools to make existing datasets accessible, bringing scale and efficiency to the collection and curation of anonymised data, and accelerating the benefit to patients. In addition, we aim to measure the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on eye services and help the NHS plan care delivery.

  Ultimately, our aim is to transform the way eye disease is diagnosed and managed in the UK and beyond.

• How we operate

  The datasets curated by INSIGHT will be available through the HDR  Innovation Gateway. Applications to access the data will be reviewed by INSIGHT’s Chief Data Officer before being passed to our Data Trust Advisory Board (Data TAB). The Data TAB is formed of members of the public, patients and other stakeholders joining in a private capacity. They bring their own experience to ensure broad representation of opinions and perspectives. The Data TAB will scrutinise individual applications using a set of principles based on the ‘Five Safes’ and other public benefit criteria. Applications will be accepted or rejected in a transparent manner and successful applicants will be subject to strict licensing agreements that prioritise data security and patient benefit.

  We are a collaboration between six partners: University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (lead institution), Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The University of Birmingham, Roche, Google and Action Against AMD.

• Our services

  INSIGHT services are aimed at the NHS (trusts, governing bodies and units), university researchers, health research charities, pharmaceutical companies, health technology companies and other public and private bodies that provide services or products to patients in the UK.

  An example of the kind of innovation we expect to lead is a joint Moorfields-Google project that used datasets from Moorfields to develop an AI diagnostic tool for age-related macular degeneration: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/news/2020/may/ai-system-predict-wet-age-related-macular-degeneration-amd

• How we benefit patients and the public

  INSIGHT was created to benefit patients, the NHS and the wider UK public. We are committed to ensuring that the views of patients and the public inform decision-making at every level as we develop our systems and processes. In addition, transparency is one of our core principles: about how INSIGHT works, how decisions are made, and the outcome of requests to access patient data.

  INSIGHT is also committed to maximising value to patients and the public by ensuring that future research findings from all studies conducted using INSIGHT data are published in an appropriate and timely way.