The Bits to Breakthroughs study-a-thon brings together clinicians, data scientists and other stakeholders working with health and biomedical data.
This year's event focuses on meaningful study questions and the methods used to answer them, bringing complementary expertise together around real research challenges.
The day is built around open collaboration, practical discussion and reproducible outcomes, with the aim of sharing experience, reducing duplicated effort and turning discussions into useful next steps.
The 2026 study-a-thon focuses on sepsis and the challenges of working across clinical data, study design, data modelling and artificial intelligence.
Two complementary perspectives come together: OMOP data modelling from hospital systems, and AI model development and docking on OMOP models.
The programme creates space to examine how these approaches can be connected, where the challenges lie, and how different areas of expertise can contribute to better research outcomes.
A study-a-thon is a focused working format designed to bring people together around specific questions and produce useful, reproducible outcomes in a short time frame.
Rather than separating clinical, methodological and technical perspectives, Bits to Breakthroughs brings them into the same conversation.
Sepsis provides the clinical context for this year's study-a-thon.
The programme looks at specific questions in a sepsis context and the challenges involved in moving from clinical data to useful research insights.
Understanding what observational data can tell us.
The programme explores study questions and causal or observational design, with attention to the challenges of drawing meaningful conclusions from routinely collected data.
Connecting hospital data with reproducible research.
OMOP data modelling provides a common structure for working with health data from hospital systems and supports reproducible analysis across datasets.
Exploring how AI models can work with structured health data.
The programme brings AI model development and docking together with OMOP models, creating an opportunity to examine how these approaches can complement one another.
The day combines focused discussion, collaborative work and opportunities to share experience across disciplines.
Programme details and schedule will be added here shortly.
The 2026 event takes place at the Kleine Bühne at Stiftung Progr, Waisenhauspl. 30 in Bern.
The venue is approximately a 10-minute walk from Bern central station and can also be reached by bus or tram. Free Wi-Fi is available.
Bits to Breakthroughs is supported by:
The 2026 organising committee brings together expertise across biomedical data science, clinical research, health data infrastructure and experience design.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science, ETH Zurich
Head of Health Information Management and Medicine Product Line IDSC and Data & Analytics Epic, Inselspital Bern
Independent Experience Designer
Strategic Leader in Responsible Technological Innovation, Swiss Data Science Center
Clinical Data, Semantic Interoperability and Digital Health, Inselspital Bern
Registration is managed through the Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC) platform. Places are limited and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
RegisterOne day in Bern
Bern, Switzerland
Open-science, cross-disciplinary
Limited
Register early to secure a seat.