RACOON

Our hospital participates in the Germany-wide RACOON project. RACOON is a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to develop image analysis methods and artificial intelligence to better understand COVID-19 and similar diseases. It aims to help improve diagnostics and therapy decisions in the management of COVID-19 and related diseases.


RACOON is a research infrastructure based on a unique hybrid network infrastructure concept. The RACOON infrastructure is designed to enable researchers to conduct joint research projects with several university hospitals in order to derive reliable findings for improving patient care. RACOON consists of hardware nodes distributed throughout Germany at each university hospital (RACOON-NODEs) and a central environment at Essen University Hospital(RACOON-CENTRAL). The first-time connection of all university medical institutes in Germany creates the possibility of large-scale, nationwide research projects, which makes previously unrealizable research possible. In this way, mechanisms of action of diseases and relevant influencing factors on their progression can be investigated and findings on risk factors of vulnerable patient groups and the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches can be derived. RACOON enables research projects with innovative approaches to be carried out, for which access to sufficiently large and well-processed patient cohorts was previously lacking; indirectly, the results of successful studies flow back into the healthcare system and improve the quality of treatment for each individual patient.

Further information on RACOON can be found at https://racoon.network/.

Subproject RACOON RECO (RACOON Phase 1)

We, the Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at Hannover Medical School, and the organizations listed below under 1 (subproject partners) are conducting the RACOON subproject RACOON RECO (RACOON Phase 1). The aim of the sub-project is the early detection and risk assessment of COVID-19 diseases. The data collected nationwide on COVID-19 suspected pneumonia cases provide a valuable basis for decision-making for epidemiological studies, situation assessments and early warning mechanisms.

For the RACOON sub-project, we process your data that we have collected as part of your treatment with us. Before being used for the RACOON sub-project, the identifying attributes (name, date of birth, address, etc.) are first removed from your data record and the remaining data (see section 3) is irreversibly hashed in our RACOON-NODE as part of a complex process, so that it is not possible to draw conclusions about your identity from the remaining data record. Due to the process used, we treat this data as pseudonymized. The data is then uploaded to RACOON-CENTRAL and released to our sub-project partners and processed by us and our sub-project partners to carry out the RACOON sub-project. Your data will not be downloaded from RACOON-CENTRAL or stored locally by the sub-project partners.

Subproject RACOON RECO (RACOON Phase 1)

Subproject RACOON Combine (RACOON Phase 2)

We, the Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at Hannover Medical School, and the organizations named below under 1(subproject partners) are conducting the RACOON subproject RACOON Combine (RACOON Phase 2). The aim of the subproject is the systematic testing of disease-specific candidate imaging biomarkers in various organ systems (lungs, heart/vessels, CNS, liver, kidney, brain, etc.). In particular, the link between imaging biomarkers relevant to the course of the disease and the individual constitution of a patient ("comorbidome") will be investigated.

For the RACOON subproject, we process your data that we have collected as part of your treatment with us. Before being used for the RACOON sub-project, the identifying attributes (name, date of birth, address, etc.) are first removed from your data record and the remaining data (see section 3) are irreversibly hashed in our RACOON-NODE as part of a complex process, so that it is not possible to draw conclusions about your identity from the remaining data record. Due to the process used, we treat this data as pseudonymized. The data is then uploaded to RACOON-CENTRAL and released to our sub-project partners and processed by us and our sub-project partners to carry out the RACOON sub-project. Your data will not be downloaded from RACOON-CENTRAL or stored locally by the sub-project partners.