Mayo Clinic, Mercy partner to de-identify clinical data

Photo: Al David Sacks/Getty Images

Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and St. Louis-based Mercy have formed a partnership in which the two organizations will de-identify patient data as they search for new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease.

They'll do so through Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect, a distributed data network that provides secure access to de-identified clinical data. Previously, Mercy and Mayo Clinic could use Connect to analyze data from their own organizations, but as of this week, each organization can safely and securely analyze de-identified patient data from either health system.

This significantly larger data set allows researchers and innovators to better identify risk factors, predict illnesses and provide earlier treatment, the organizations said.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT?

Mayo Clinic Platform recently announced the addition of three healthcare organizations to its global collaboration: Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea, Singapore's SingHealth and UC Davis Health in California.

This expansion brings the total number of Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect members to eight, including founding members Mayo Clinic and Mercy, Brazil's Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, Israel's Sheba Medical Center and Canada's University Health Network, which joined in 2023. The alliance now spans seven countries across three continents.

Each organization will be able to look for trends, indicators, risk factors and more while retaining control over its de-identified outcomes through Mayo Clinic Platform's Data Behind Glass approach, they said. 

Mayo Clinic and Mercy will develop products, algorithms and tools for their health systems that can be made available to other health systems for use in the same way.

"After more than a year in development, we now have a platform that permits insights from Mercy's own data and that of Mayo Clinic," said Byron Yount, chief data and AI officer for Mercy. "This data will improve patients' lives by helping us find diseases earlier and supporting more personalized care."

THE LARGER TREND

At the HIMSS24 global conference in Orlando in March, a team at Mayo Clinic revealed the system would be taking digital technology into account when pursuing new building projects, with a plan that includes a multiyear timeline for investing in digital experiences.

Adam Copeland, director of digital strategy at Mayo Clinic, said digital transformation is not about gadgets and devices, but about finding new ways to enable humanistic, patient-centered care.

"We want to have a hyper-personalized experience, emphasizing that we know you and we know what your needs are," said Copeland.

ON THE RECORD

"This unprecedented data set allows us to harness the power of artificial intelligence to develop algorithms and validate treatment plans effectively for complex patient populations," said Joe Kelly, executive vice president and chief transformation officer for Mercy. "These algorithms, integrated directly into everyday clinical workflows, can help us predict the likelihood of chronic diseases and help to better proactively assist patients earlier in their care, improving outcomes and reducing costs for both patients and health systems."
 

Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.