Regenstrief partners with MDClone to speed up access to data for medical research

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Dec 21 2018

Health care generates vast amounts of data that have the potential to drive medical research and improve health, but unlocking the power of those data for the greater good is often slow and challenging. To address this, Regenstrief Institute of Indianapolis and MDClone of Israel have formed a partnership that aims to speed access to data for medical research, while ensuring patient privacy.

"Regenstrief is already the data steward and broker for one of the largest sets of biomedical data used in research around the region and the globe," said Peter Embi, M.D., Regenstrief Institute president and chief executive officer, who is currently meeting with the MDClone team in Israel. "This partnership will enhance Regenstrief's efforts to accelerate research and innovation by significantly shortening the time to deliver research-ready, privacy-preserving synthetic data, thereby enabling new discoveries, improving quality and reducing costs."

"Having been in the health care IT world for more than two decades, I've seen the impact of Regenstrief's many groundbreaking contributions to the field," said Ziv Ofek, MDClone's founder and chief executive officer. "I am privileged to begin working with Regenstrief, implementing MDClone's innovative platform powered by our synthetic data engine that will fundamentally transform the use of data for improving health care throughout Indiana and beyond."

MDClone dramatically shortens the time to access and ensures the privacy of data, reducing both IT and regulatory burdens through its big data platform and by creating robust, valuable, synthetic data sets based on original data of interest. The synthetic data tells the same statistical story as original data so it can be analyzed as if it were original, but it does not contain any real patient data.

MDClone's approach will be applied to a trove of data that Regenstrief manages for some of its health system partners, to show how it can enable more rapid and secure data sharing with research partners throughout the region, country and world. As it proceeds, the Regenstrief and MDClone partnership will work on data-driven initiatives with the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University Health, Eskenazi Health and the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE).

John Kansky, IHIE president and CEO, said, "Enabling the use of data for research is critical to producing new ideas and solutions for health care and for the overall health of the population. Improving access to clinical data for research scientists and providing timely, actionable knowledge is at the core of what Regenstrief has done throughout its history. As data stewards dedicated to the support of research, we at IHIE will work closely with Regenstrief to demonstrate synthetic data's potential to make health care better for Indiana's citizens and providers."

"The IU Health system cares for millions of patients each year, and each interaction generates more data," said Dennis Murphy, president and CEO of IU Health. "This new partnership could help us and our research partners better use data to ultimately improve care while at the same time providing a new level of security to protect patients' personal information."

"For over four decades, Eskenazi Health has had a close relationship with the Regenstrief Institute, resulting in groundbreaking work to improve the health care of Marion County residents and inform health information technology implementation here and around the globe," said Lisa Harris, M.D., CEO of Eskenazi Health. "We look forward to collaborating with the new Regenstrief-MDClone partnership, as another avenue to affirm Eskenazi's commitment to high value and high impact health research and care for all, including for those who are traditionally underserved."

"Access to high-quality data for research can often be cumbersome, frustrating discovery of new solutions to health problems, slowing the timeliness of decision making and inhibiting the implementation of better care for patients," said IU School of Medicine Executive Associate Dean for Research Affairs Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D. "This partnership is a natural strategic progression which will enable IU School of Medicine researchers to harness the potential of big data to find solutions that may ultimately speed delivery of better health to more individuals at lower cost. MDClone's innovative technologies, combined with Regenstrief's expertise and decades-long, real-world experience as an innovator, will allow us to accelerate discovery and have an even greater impact on health and health care."

"This is an extremely valuable opportunity for Regenstrief and its partners, and adds another dimension to our already considerable data capabilities and resources," said Dr. Embi. "Regenstrief and its partners have long been pioneers in health information exchange and research, and are entrusted with one of the largest sets of health care data in the world. This partnership should make Indiana and the region a magnet for data innovation nationally."

MDClone and Regenstrief are working now to install the new data platform at Regenstrief, laying the groundwork for better connecting data with researchers across the Institute, Indiana University, and other research partners.