Mercy and Mayo Add 3 Health Systems to Shared Data Network

Mercy and Mayo Clinic on Wednesday announced an expansion of their data-sharing partnership, adding health care organizations from three countries to the network.

Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Brazil, Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and University Health Network in Canada are now members of the network, called “Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect.”

St. Louis-based Mercy, which has hospitals in Rogers and Fort Smith, teamed up with Minnesota-based Mayo last year to launch the initiative, which aims to use health care data to detect diseases earlier and start treating patients sooner. A higher goal of the partnership is to “transform health care delivery and the practice of medicine to a much more preventative and wellness care focused model,” Mercy said in a news release.

Each organization will be able to analyze the others’ data from deidentified patient records to look for trends, indicators, risk factors and more. All data are secured in a network that enables the organizations to work with an extensive set of outcomes without extracting or transferring data between the organizations. Each health care system will retain control over its deidentified outcomes throughout the process.

Mayo describes it as “Data Behind Glass.” The collaboration anticipates that artificial intelligence and machine learning will lead to the development of numerous algorithms and technologies that could serve a wide range of purposes beyond the broad goal of improving care.

“Until now, no structure existed that would allow us to analyze that information and learn from it in near real-time. It’s just been far too complex,” Joseph Kelly, executive vice president of transformation for Mercy, said in the release. “Moving forward, we’ll have the opportunity to utilize artificial intelligence to optimize patient care clinically, operationally and experientially.”

Mercy said active data analysis has begun. In the future, Mercy expects the collaboration to allow it and other members of the network to develop products and tools for their systems, but also ones that could be made available to other health systems.

“The ability to predict cancer before it happens means we may be able to prevent cancer from occurring. Every doctor wants that for our patients,” Byron Yount, an epidemiologist and Mercy’s vice president of data strategy and governance, said in the release. “Are there earlier signs of disease and risk than we currently understand? As importantly, are there proactive actions that are safe and effective? Let’s find out.

“That kind of care is what this work is all about.”

Meanwhile, Mercy is expanding its footprint in northwest Arkansas. The health system announced last year that it planned to spent $500 million to add more doctors, clinics and a cancer center in the region. Expanded services will include primary care, neuroscience, emergency, orthopedics, women and children’s and behavioral health.