MRD Overview

Service Context and Overview🔗︎ click to copy

There is a tremendous amount of duplication of effort across many organisations as they seek to validate data as part of their data entry forms and automated processing. We describe this type of data as Master Reference Data, it is not personal data but it affects everyone’s lives and the service providers who support them.

We have created a democratised master reference data services or MRD offering designed to reduce the friction, effort, risk and cost for individuals and organisations who need to ensure the data they are using can be validated whether this is for something as simple as a postcode, or through to complex health conditions and diagnosis.  Our goal is to deliver and maintain a professionally managed, highly available and resilient set of master reference data services so that our stakeholders do not reinvent the wheel or duplicate the effort of others or become locked into specific commercial applications.

Management of source data files - A key part of our service is the streamlining of the collection and updating of master reference data services by automating the collection and processing of source data files and undertaking the processing of them to either extract, transform, combine and load them into our MRD databases so they are accessible via a common API service.

MRD subscribers are able to access master reference data to integrate into their own services and applications.  They integrate to our Master Reference Data services API over encrypted services with an authentication layer followed by an authorisation layer that enables them to access the specified master reference data services they have subscribed to. 

Service Features and Benefits🔗︎ click to copy

Service features🔗︎ click to copy

• Extensible range of master reference data services dataset
• Health and Wellbeing, Medicines
• Postcode, Geolocation, IP address, mapping services
• Countries and International Codes
• Race / Ethnicity
• Institutions, service providers, venues and events
• Financial services
• Proxy services to other reference look up services with privacy shield
• Secure API endpoints that can process requests efficiently
• Datasets maintained and updated on a regular schedule to ensure accuracy

Service elements🔗︎ click to copy

• Technical requirements - Services accessed via RESTFul API endpoints have to be formally declared and validated to commence live access to production platform
• Data backup and disaster recovery - Automated backup off site under ISO27001 Information Security Management System with disaster recovery processes tested regularly
• Onboarding and offboarding support - via our normal support service 
• Service constraints - Service is operated on a 24/7 basis, standard API’s and services that can be configured, extensions to MRD schema and API features available if required on a platform wide basis

Service benefits🔗︎ click to copy

• Improved data quality
• Reduced data sparsity
• Reduce overhead and costs maintaining equivalent reference data services
• Reduced dependency on commercial application vendors
• Treat as a shared service across your organisation
• Ability to extend scope and deploy your own open data and master reference data services
• Low-cost, simple deployment and integration using open standards
• Independently certified under ISO27001 for its information security management system and FairData

All of our services focus on addressing the four great barriers to improvement in public services and the digital economy generally. They are Friction, Effort, Risk and Cost (FERC). FERC negatively impacts citizens and service providers alike, creating barriers to access leading to exclusion, inefficiency and increased costs in the delivery of services.

 A key underlying cause of FERC in public services is a lack of shared infrastructure that can address the need for high quality master reference data services and the ability to safely and securely share data.

Traditional stove pipe approaches to application design and development and service delivery create significant duplication of reference data that can rapidly get out of step across an organisation and its services and those of its service delivery partners.

Little or no innovation has been made to address these two issues mainly because they pose collective action problems: while it would be in the interests of most organisations for such an infrastructure to exist, it’s beyond their remit or not their immediate top-most priority to address it.

Mydex CIC has invented a range of services to address these collective action problems and create simple, safe and secure subscription based services and platforms that democratise master reference data and give it a secure publishing platform that takes the headaches out of maintaining its accuracy and availability.  This approach tackles at the root level the friction, effort, risk and cost at the heart of service delivery and spreads the load and cost of maintaining high quality reference data needed by all.

The following benefits are enabled by the use of Mydex Master Reference Data Services:

• Reduction of time and money spent by service providers in maintaining and publishing reference data
• Reduction in cost of service provision due to elimination of unnecessary duplicated effort and checking of data and streamlining of processes.
• Faster responses to changes in policy and requirements leading to earlier interventions and improved outcomes and avoidance of issues caused by late access
• Reduced fraud and error in online processes through the use of trusted canonical reference data
• Increased capacity from existing budgets and resources through greater productivity and reduced resource demands through use of a subscription service.  The ability to deliver more for the same
• Improved data quality and accuracy - trust and confidence from using a shared master reference data service which is well maintained and flexible
• Reduced costs in IT infrastructure, software and services through access to a secure hosted service enabling incremental migration and improvement in current applications and services without major systems reengineering and change.

Broader Government, social and policy benefits:

• Improved data quality and access through a shared service - Multiple subscribers sharing the cost of maintaining and developing master reference data services improves data quality and access whilst driving down operating costs
• Faster and more efficient implementation and tuning of policy programmes
• Ability to move from a reactive to proactive implementation of policy, benefits and services through mapping of policy data requirements with the necessary data required
• Reduced procurement, implementation and integration costs with legacy systems made possible by the ability to access shared services on a low cost subscription basis. These services are fully independently certified for information security management.