SALT LAKE CITY, April 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthcare
providers and public health authorities across the country are
struggling to answer complex questions related to the COVID-19
pandemic. Health Catalyst, Inc. ("Health Catalyst,"
Nasdaq: HCAT) is analyzing the data in its Touchstone™
platform of 80 million de-identified patient records to produce
real-world COVID-19 insights related to surveillance, testing,
capacity planning, and treatment response—and making the results of
that analysis available to customers, health systems, public health
authorities, state and local government, and biopharma working on
vaccine and therapeutics development.
Important research topics, including understanding how existing
treatments may affect patient outcomes, have proved difficult to
answer with existing data. The datasets being used lack either
clinical depth or the power of national scale. But the answers
needed today require highly detailed clinical data at the national
level.
"There are essentially two strategies for managing COVID-19, and
both require vast amounts of this data," said Dr. Sadiqa Mahmood, Senior Vice President and
General Manager of Health Catalyst's Life Sciences Business.
"First, we need better testing and therapeutic treatment options in
the near term to improve the testing, care and survival of COVID-19
patients. Second, and longer term, we need a vaccine to protect the
population. Both strategies are fundamentally reliant upon large
and granular clinical data sets. There are several large commercial
and public data sets in healthcare, but the most valuable data in
fighting COVID-19 comes from the real-world clinical data extracted
from electronic health records. We pull and integrate data from
more than 20 different EHR vendor systems, from our clients across
the country. Touchstone brings this disparate, multi-EHR vendor
data together in one repository, making it uniquely valuable to
this national effort."
"We envisioned and started building Touchstone four years ago to
integrate granular, disparate EHR and claims data, and enable
unprecedented data analysis for rare diseases and large-scale
public and population health. Here we are; COVID-19 is exactly why
Touchstone exists. Big compliments go to the entire Touchstone
team, led by Aaron Neiderhiser,"
said Dale Sanders, Chief Technology
Officer at Health Catalyst. "The Touchstone COVID-19 Registry
currently contains 64,000 patients, with an additional 500,000
patients with COVID-related symptoms that are being analyzed for
risk of being an undiagnosed COVID patient. We're analyzing all of
that data, cleaning it up and looking for patterns that will help
us win the battle. When it comes to our COVID-19 response, we are
better when we work together as a country, and the same applies to
the data we need to understand and wrestle the virus down. Our
healthcare data is exponentially better when it is integrated and
working together, for deeper and more accurate insights."
The data in Touchstone is one of the largest national
repositories of health data in the world, but what makes the
dataset truly unique is its clinical detail, integrating
heterogenous EHR systems, including the data artifacts of every
healthcare encounter (i.e. orders, medications, labs, therapies,
diagnostics, and observations). The data is currently updated
weekly, but will soon be updated daily, allowing for a timely view
of COVID-19 situational awareness. This data content will
continue to grow to more than 100 million patients in the coming
weeks and months, enabling even greater understanding of COVID-19
treatments and outcomes, as well as other diseases. In addition to
clinical data, Touchstone also contains de-identified claims and
costing data, providing data scientists with an unprecedented,
single workspace for healthcare analysis.
The COVID-19 registry consists of three core patient types: (1)
Patients who, if infected, are at high risk of death or severe
symptoms; (2) Patients who are suspected of being infected, but not
confirmed; and (3) Confirmed COVID-19 infected patients. From these
three patient types, COVID-19 can be analyzed in hundreds of
dimensions to inform care pathways and treatment options. The
Touchstone data is currently being analyzed to forecast infection
and mortality rates, assess impacts on local and national health
system capacity, and track COVID-19 test results. It is also being
used to analyze the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine,
Remdesivir, Interleukin-6 inhibitors, mechanical ventilation, and
to identify those patients at greatest risk for mortality so that
those patients can be fast-tracked to optimized care.
"It is important to acknowledge what has made this possible,"
said Dan Burton, CEO of Health
Catalyst. "Touchstone wouldn't exist as a national asset without
the trust and partnership of our participating clients in enabling
the aggregation of these clients and their patients' de-identified
data, and the careful use of this data for mission-consistent
purposes such as the battle against COVID-19. Our clients'
willingness to partner together with us in this way can help the
entire country, and hopefully, the world."
Twenty Health Catalyst client organizations are already
contributing data to the Touchstone platform, with many more
clients considering participation as well, particularly as it
relates to COVID-19 analytics. While Health Catalyst's clients are
working at a full sprint, preparing for and reacting to this surge,
Touchstone technology is working in the background, compiling data
to inform care pathways that lead to better treatment and higher
survival—and thanks to the clients who are participating in
Touchstone, Health Catalyst will continue to share that work with
the world.
About Health Catalyst
Health Catalyst is a leading provider of data and analytics
technology and services to healthcare organizations, and is
committed to being the catalyst for massive, measurable,
data-informed healthcare improvement. Its customers leverage the
cloud-based data platform—powered by data from more than 100
million patient records and encompassing trillions of facts—as well
as its analytics software and professional services expertise to
make data-informed decisions and realize measurable clinical,
financial and operational improvements. Health Catalyst envisions a
future in which all healthcare decisions are data informed.
Health Catalyst Media Contact:
Kristen Berry
healthcatalyst@we-worldwide.com
617-234-4123
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SOURCE Health Catalyst