Eye Platform is developed by CGI for the Association for Biomedical Research and Innovation in Light and Image (AIBILI).
Eye Platform pilot project
Working with AIBILI, CGI created the Eye Platform to enable data sharing for European Vision Clinical Research (EVICR.net), a European network of clinical research centers dedicated to carrying out multinational clinical research in ophthalmology. By aggregating anonymized ophthalmological data generated throughout Europe, the platform facilitates data reuse for clinical research purposes while responding to the privacy, security and regulatory requirements associated with data sharing between institutions and countries.
Objectives
The EVICR.net European network has 98 centers in 17 countries and aims to strengthen the European Union’s (EU) capacity to study ophthalmological diseases and develop and enhance the use of diagnostic, prevention and treatment strategies in ophthalmology.
The Eye Platform pilot project also aims to:
- Provide an easy-to-use platform
- Minimize human effort in data sharing
- Avoid duplication of studies while optimizing resources containing automatic data validation mechanisms (i.e., tables and images)
- Facilitate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) models by obtaining good quality, well-organized and characterized data that is available to the scientific community
Client challenges
- Develop a common technological platform that allows the aggregation, reuse and anonymization of ophthalmological data generated in Europe.
- Ensure security, authentication and defense components that protect against security attacks and facilitate data scalability.
- Create an easy-to-use platform that avoids duplicate studies and minimizes the human effort involved in sharing data.
- Facilitate and streamline clinical research in the field of ophthalmology.

This pilot project focuses on creating a database containing information on ophthalmological medical exams to provide researchers with an easily accessible library of exam results. This solution is developed with the ability for users and researchers to integrate technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The Eye Platform aims to enable the reuse of ophthalmological data in characterizing pathologies and developing AI models in order to improve healthcare in Europe.
Researcher and Software Development Technician at AIBILI
Benefits
The main goal of this platform is to collect and reuse data acquired through multiple imaging modalities while ensuring that data is organized in a uniform way. Because this is a long-term initiative, several studies can be integrated over time and data will be available for reuse by other European research groups, industries, and associations. The platform helps reduce costs and optimize the financial resources available to carry out clinical research in Europe.
- The high-quality ophthalmology data collected is intended for secondary use in performing large data analysis and promoting clinical research.
- With 97 members in 17 countries and more than 800 researchers, the network continues to grow.
- Image data is the main data source for the platform and is automatically verified and analyzed for consistency, accuracy, completeness, auditability, validity, and uniqueness.
- Data providers (clinical centers) submit anonymized data to the Eye Platform, while data requesters (clinical centers, industry, and others) can request data from the platform for developing AI models for screening and predicting disease progression.
Services and solutions
To meet client needs, CGI developed the Eye Platform based on the following,
- Cloud technology to enable users to easily scale data collection capacity
- Azure technologies to power the EVICR.net system and integrate PostgreSQL and Azure Cosmos DB for efficient storage and retrieval of medical image metadata which ensures scalability, reliability and security
- Antivirus filtering and anonymized and encrypted data in transit and at rest to prioritize system security
