Mercy, Mayo Clinic team up to use data science for better disease treatment, prevention

Mercy and Mayo Clinic are embarking on a 10-year alliance to use data science and clinical records for better disease treatment and prevention, the health systems announced Tuesday.

Over more than a decade, the two health systems have collected vast amounts of data about patient treatments and outcomes. Through the agreement, they'll use a cloud-based platform to analyze deidentified patient records from over the years, which data scientists will use to find patterns that could help providers make predictions and personalize someone’s medical care.

The health systems plan to combine Mayo Clinic's expertise and investment in data science with Mercy's massive, diverse repository of past patient records — over 500 million of them — to develop algorithms that can improve patients' care.

That could mean helping patients make early changes to improve their health, said Dr. Jesse Campbell, president of Mercy Clinic Oklahoma.

Rather than waiting for a patient to get sick, predictive models developed through the health systems' "distributed data network" might be able to identify how likely it is for a patient with certain risk factors and certain types of doctor’s visits to develop various types of medical conditions, Campbell said.

“Because of that, can we develop personalized medical plans for that patient? Do we need to start them on a certain type of diet now rather than later?” Campbell said.

Tuesday marked the very beginning of the agreement. But as the information is analyzed over time, the technology could eventually signal to providers what treatments a patient in the hospital may need while they’re admitted and help plan for discharges, Campbell said.

Especially for Oklahoma, where residents have high rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and COPD, the collaboration could mean better treatment over time, he said.

“This will accelerate our ability to treat Oklahomans and provide cutting-edge medical care at a lower cost, and I believe with better outcomes because of this collaboration with Mayo,” he said.

No identifying patient data like names, addresses or other identifiers will be shared, Campbell said. Data that could be shared are stats like age, weight, gender, diagnoses, medications and patient outcomes — which could be helpful when looking at vast amounts of data to look for patterns, he said.

The goal is to ensure “patients receive the right treatment at the right time,” said Dr. John Mohart, a cardiologist and president of Mercy communities, in a news release announcing the agreement.

“We believe bringing technology and data science to the bedside can provide better patient care, shorter hospital stays and overall better health for people everywhere,” he said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Mayo Clinic, Mercy Oklahoma team up on data science initiative