Prologue
The use of data in innovative ways is driving and transforming healthcare and life sciences more than ever. In healthcare, advanced analytics are improving clinical support, value-based care, population health, and management of at-risk populations. In life sciences, big data and advanced analytics are transforming clinical trials, precision health, diagnostics, and the drug development process, among a myriad of other areas. The availability of health and health related data assets is foundational to this advancement in health information technology (HIT).
Indiana’s history of leadership in HIT spans more than 50 years. Many milestones and unique initiatives underscore this leadership, including:
Based on the data resources available within industry, government, health systems, academia, and digital health startups, Indiana has a potentially unique opportunity to anchor the state as the crossroads of data/analytics and healthcare/life sciences. The health data community must continue to work together to ensure awareness of the data, talent, and technology resources available and build solutions where there are gaps.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to demonstrate the value of the health data community working together. From the start of this pandemic, a broad contingent of professionals across government, health systems, university, life sciences industry, and non-profit sectors came together to form the Indiana Pandemic Information Collaborative (IPIC). IPIC has allowed the health data organizations the ability to maximize the impact of their collective efforts and to better inform key leaders about the health of our shared community. Public facing dashboards, predictive models for the state and hospital systems, accessibility of data for non-profit leaders, improved coordination around national collaborations, and connectivity to novel solutions from the for-profit sector have all been part of the platform. IPIC’s goal is to work together to share data, information, and knowledge to beat COVID-19 and to address other future health needs to keep Indiana healthy and safe.
IPIC is one example of the community working together to tackle a major healthcare challenge, but there are other initiatives working on diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and more. Still, there may be additional opportunities to extend this kind of collaboration to other disease states such as kidney disease and neurological disorders. BioCrossroads developed the Book of Data and Organizations based on this opportunity and its role as convener, since it does not directly own or analyze data.
There are numerous audiences for this resource, each of which will likely utilize it in a slightly different way. A few examples include:
Ideally, this resource reduces the need to seek health data assets elsewhere, establish more ideal partnerships locally, and attract outside organizations to collaborate with Indiana based organizations. Improved coordination across the health-data intersection can improve recruiting and retention, leverage investments, and drive economic growth for the state. The key to maximizing value is improving intentionality with collaborations, executing cross-organizational projects where partners can improve or accelerate efforts, and building in the “grey space”, adjacent areas where the collective community lacks capacity. This document is one resource to support this opportunity.
About BioCrossroads
BioCrossroads advances Indiana’s life sciences industry by connecting with corporate, academic, and philanthropic partners; facilitating investments in promising startups and building new enterprises; and educating through conferences, reports and market development knowledge. By collaborating with Indiana’s research institutions, global companies, philanthropic organizations, and government to advance growth and innovation, we make connections for all of Indiana’s life sciences community and work to accelerate its success. We are promoting and growing this critical sector for both the health of patients around the world as well as the economic health of Indiana.
Executive Summary
There are tremendous data, talent, and technology resources available within Indiana’s industry, government, health systems, academia, and digital health startups, giving Indiana a unique opportunity to innovate and collaborate together for better health outcomes and life sciences research.
This Book of Data and Organizations has been created to chronicle the assets Indiana has at the health-data intersection to help improve the coordination of these organizations and those that work with them. This resource is not an assessment, but a directory for some of our resources. There are extensive activities occurring here in Indiana that should be highlighted and promoted so that valuable relationships can be forged, and partnerships can be intentional.
This draft includes snapshots of organizations who control data assets – data sets, data talent, and/or data technology – as well as cross-organizational initiatives. It also includes how these assets can be accessed. The organization profiles include:
This document will continue to expand both in number of organizations represented as well as depth of information for each organization. It will also grow to describe additional cross-organizational initiatives where partnerships are critical to success. This document will be fully refreshed annually, with additional organizations and initiatives added on a rolling basis. The most recent version is available at www.biocrossroads.com. If you are interested in having your organization or initiative included, please contact Darshan Shah at dshah@biocrossroads.com