The new database includes HIPAA-compliant, de-identified and limited, longitudinal, patient-level data sets from the consortium of institutions and organizations that helped develop it.
As more companies aim resources at COVID-19, a consortium launched the COVID-19 Research Database, a secure repository of HIPAA-compliant, de-identified and limited patient-level data sets made available to public health and policy researchers to extract insights to help combat the pandemic.
The collaborators include Advarra, Berkeley Research Group, Datavant, OMNY, Parexel, Prognos Health, QIAGEN, SAS, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, Symphony Health, Veradigm, and Verana Health.
The database, which represents one of the largest public-private repositories of real-world data ever assembled, was developed to provide researchers and policymakers with something of a one-stop-shop for data relevant to the different kinds of research being conducted on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has brought most of the world to a halt. The COVID-19 Research Database contains a repository of real-world data, including medical claims, pharmacy claims, electronic health records and demographic data. It also integrates privacy-preserving patient linking technology and statistical certification, connecting data sources in a HIPAA-compliant manner to provide a more complete view of the patient journey, the consortium said this morning.
“Understanding and addressing COVID-19 is the challenge of our time,” Travis May, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Datavant said in a statement this morning. May added that the collaboration that allowed for the creation of the database has been “inspiring.”
Researchers can access the COVID-19 Research Database via an analytic platform, enabling them to conduct large-scale studies while protecting patient privacy. In the announcement, some examples of the types of assessments that can be conducted using the COVID-19 Research Database were provided, including evaluations of drug effectiveness utilizing de-identified electronic health record and claims data, identifying which demographic factors and pre-existing conditions are most closely correlated with ventilator support or excess mortality, and measuring the public health impact of quarantine measures put in place in different geographies.
Researchers interested in accessing the database can submit a proposal to the Scientific Steering Committee. Researchers whose submissions are accepted can then access the database at no cost. Research findings can be submitted to and made available through peer-reviewed publications.
Mark Cullen, professor of medicine at Stanford University and chairman of the steering committee, said the database, part of a massive public-private collaboration, “offers researchers a solution and a chance to dramatically accelerate our understanding of this highly infectious virus.” Cullen said one of the first challenges researchers have faced during the COVID-19 crisis has been the difficulty of accessing quality healthcare data that can answer important questions like treatment effects of certain drugs, as well as “factors that drive differential risk of catching the disease and very different outcomes in those who do.”
