About the CLIF Consortium
The Common Longitudinal ICU data Format (CLIF) Consortium unites clinicians, data scientists, and institutions committed to accelerating critical-care research through standardized, privacy-preserving data structures.
Who We Are
Founded in 2023, the CLIF Consortium has grown into a collaborative network spanning 17 institutions and 46 hospitals across North America. Our team combines deep clinical expertise with state-of-the-art data engineering and AI research.
Consortium Assembly Begins
Geographically diverse group of U.S.-based clinician-scientists and data scientists convene virtually
Challenge Identification & Solution Development
Identified practical challenges of using EHR data for critical illness research across institutions
Standardized Framework Established
Developed standardized operating procedures, shared terminologies, and robust quality control methods
Publication & Implementation
Framework published in Intensive Care Medicine, enabling critical care research across all hospital settings
What We Do
We develop open-source data standards, robust ETL pipelines, and federated analytics tools that make it possible to run large-scale, privacy-preserving studies of critical illness in days instead of years.
Why It Matters
By harmonizing data points and enabling rapid, multi-center research, CLIF empowers clinicians and scientists to discover new insights, improve patient outcomes, and set new standards for transparency and reproducibility in critical-care research.
Our Overarching Goal
To provide a standardized framework for representing critical illness data across all hospital care settings — from ICUs to emergency departments and hospital wards — enabling researchers to accomplish essential critical care informatics tasks wherever and whenever critical illness begins.
Challenges & Solutions
The Challenge We Solve
Fragmented Systems
Incompatible data formats and systems across institutions prevent effective collaboration
Time Barriers
Months needed for data use agreements, then harmonizing data at central sites delays critical research
Privacy Concerns
Centralized data repositories raise security and compliance challenges
The CLIF Solution
Rapid Analysis
Test hypotheses across millions of encounters in days, not years
Privacy-First
Federated architecture ensures patient data security
Standardized Format
CLIF 2.0.0 – Our most comprehensive data model
Key Features
Accelerate Discovery
Go from hypothesis to multi-center analysis in days, not years. Our standardized format eliminates months of data wrangling.
Preserve Privacy
Federated architecture means patient data never leaves your institution. Achieve collaboration without compromising security.
Ensure Reproducibility
Standardized variables and harmonized vocabularies through mCIDE guarantee your research can be validated and extended.