By GREGORY ZELLER //
New York’s largest healthcare provider is contributing to a national program that will save lives with digital data.
Billed as “the world’s first health system-led data platform,” the Washington State-based Truveta Platform is now live, offering an unprecedented amalgam of real-time clinical information from thousands of healthcare sites in 42 states.
Major healthcare systems including Louisiana-based Ochsner Health, Missouri-based Saint Luke’s Health System and Iowa-based UnityPoint Health are sharing their data, as is New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare system by number of providers and number of patients.
The data is “de-identified,” protecting the individual patient’s right to anonymity. But with volumes flowing in from all national corners – not just conditions and treatments, but geography and critical information including each patient’s age, gender, ethnicity and more – the Truveta Platform embraces diversity on a multifaceted mission to help researchers find new cures, clinicians provide better care and families make better decisions.
Terry Myerson: Data driven.
One of the platform’s first data tranches focused on COVID-19, revealing new nationwide statistics about “breakthrough infections” among the fully vaccinated (9 to 15 percent wind up hospitalized) and hospitalization rates by type of vaccine (the Johnson & Johnson vaccine results in the most breakthrough-infection hospitalizations), among other key COVID insights.
That sort of detailed information is pure gold to providers – and precisely why the Truveta Platform was built, according to Truveta CEO Terry Myerson, a former Microsoft executive who once led the tech titan’s Windows and Devices Group.
“One of the greatest travesties of COVID-19 is the failure of public institutions in the [United States] to combat the pandemic using real-time data,” Myerson said Tuesday. “The [United States] is one of the few developed countries to lack a national COVID-19 dashboard with rich insights for effectively managing the pandemic.”
Instead, nationwide treatment decisions – and protocols on lockdowns and other public-facing restrictions – have been based on “outdated data from other countries” that’s “not reflective of [America] diversity,” according to Myerson.
“Death and hospitalization rates reflect this failure,” he added.
With the Truveta Platform up and running, and more than 16 percent of U.S. clinical-care providers contributing to the cause, nationwide researchers and clinicians can now chip away at that problem. And COVID is just a fraction of the platform’s promise, with Redmond-based Truveta also announcing Tuesday a $200 million private-funding round aimed at fleshing things out.
That intriguing capacity is what attracted Northwell Health, according to Martin Doerfler, Northwell’s senior vice president of clinical strategy and development.
“Northwell saw Truveta as an important partnership between healthcare provider organizations and technology leaders,” Doerfler told Innovate Long Island, calling the Truveta Platform “a unique asset that can accelerate knowledge creation to improve healthcare for our communities and the world.”
The daily-updated platform will make copious use of critical data including lab reports, vital signs, physician notes, diagnosis and procedure codes and pathology reports, all collated into a vast well of real-time information. Truveta accelerates its insights with artificial intelligence and machine learning, structuring the clinical data into “billions of data points,” according to the company.
Martin Doerfler: Unique asset.
Customizable, interactive dashboards further accelerate the user experience and the data’s inherent value, with healthcare providers, life-science researchers and entire health systems gaining at-a-glimpse updates on current conditions, clinical trials and more.
That represents an exceptionally powerful resource, “especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Clay Holderman, president and CEO of UnityPoint Health, which announced its alliance with the Truveta Platform this week.
“Such real-time data allows us to rapidly understand the unique needs of our patients,” Holderman said in a statement. “Truveta will significantly enhance our ability to improve patient-care outcomes for the communities we serve.”
Northwell Health, which began contributing to the Truveta Platform database back in February, foresees similar benefits, according to Doerfler.
“Northwell expects to be able to answer important questions regarding how we deliver healthcare,” the senior VP said, noting real advantages for “the patients who count on us to do our best every opportunity we have.”
