It was March 2020. I was quarantined in my home with my family, genuinely a little scared for the world at large. What is going on with this new virus? How do I protect those I love? Why are so many dying? Why don’t we have more data to help us now?
That same month I learned about the Truveta vision from leaders at Providence. They knew there were valuable needles of insights buried within the haystacks of data they managed – answers on how to best treat patients, cure diseases, and best serve their communities – yet, they could not access them. They knew data at scale bigger than their system alone would provide even more deep insights, and potentially transform healthcare.
COVID-19 accelerated the urgency to learn quicker, move faster, and improve patient outcomes. As we talked about the challenge and the opportunity, it became so clear that the world needed Truveta.
Uniting to Advance Patient Care
In the months that followed, other leading health providers came together in an unprecedented fashion to unite around the goal of improving the lives of those they serve through data insights. Today we announced health provider innovators AdventHealth, Advocate Aurora Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Bon Secours Mercy Health, CommonSpirit Health, Hawaii Pacific Health, Henry Ford Health System, Memorial Hermann Health System, Northwell Health, Novant Health, Providence health system, Sentara Healthcare, Tenet Health, and Trinity Health co-founded Truveta.
Together, these health providers care for tens of millions of patients and operate thousands of care facilities across 40 states. They will govern Truveta’s ethical pursuit of insights from this unprecedented de-identified data set. By coming together with a shared sense of purpose to use their collective data for the common good of humanity, the Truveta platform will be unique in the depth, quality, and diversity of data it offers for insights.
Our vision is to save lives with data. We want to help researchers find cures faster, empower every clinician to be an expert, and help families make the most informed decisions on their care.
We believe the Truveta platform can help improve health equity and advance personalized medicine.
The Truveta team is honored to be partnering with these innovative and world-class health providers in this pursuit and we welcome others to join us.
Saving Lives with Data
COVID-19 shows the potential of rapid innovation and learning-the healthcare community has made remarkable progress, from diagnosis to vaccine distribution in less than a year. Yet, Truveta’s innovative health provider partners agree COVID-19 must be a catalyst for even more rapid progress.
If the Truveta platform had existed over the last year, physicians could have learned best treatment paths from each other faster. Which medications are most effective? When should patients be intubated? Why do African American men have significantly higher mortality rates? In the U.S., why are nearly one-third of the nurses who died of COVID-19 Filipino, even though they represent 4% of the nursing population? What are the effects of COVID-19 and related isolation on adolescents and their mental health? Faster answers to these questions could have saved thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions. Researchers could have staffed clinical trials more quickly with statistically representative populations, shaving months from the vaccine approval process. A greater understanding of health equity could have helped ensure more equitable distribution of vaccines.
Truveta will drive innovation in patient care and the development of new therapies through the creation of the Truveta data platform, which will deliver valuable insights from billions of clinical data points with a single search. The Truveta platform will structure and normalize a wide range of data across structured and unstructured data types to unlock the power of de-identified data across all diagnoses, geographics, and demographics. Using advanced AI and machine learning, Truveta will deliver continuous learning to physicians, biopharma, and families with aggregate analysis of conditions, therapies, and prognoses.
Helping improve patient care, advancing health equity, accelerating treatment during pandemics, expediting diagnosis of rare diseases, and empowering patients on their journeys are just a few of the potential applications of our data – we share more details here.
Earning the Trust of Communities
We know health data is unlike other data. It is the very definition of personal.
While we embark on our pursuit to generate knowledge and insights to improve patient care around the world, we must do so with the utmost caution to protect the privacy of patients.
Along with our partners, we recognize the tremendous potential in the Truveta platform, balanced with careful and thoughtful stewardship of data. We are deeply committed to patient privacy and security, and ethical innovation. Learning from other patient experiences will help providers and their patients make informed decisions and advance care for humanity all while maintaining trust. All data on the Truveta platform will be de-identified. We will be transparent in our approach and welcome feedback as we build our platform.
Enabling Equitable Care and Advancing Education
It has been said that the best care in the world is somewhere, but not everywhere. We want to help any medical professional learn through data. We see the opportunity for Truveta to help democratize care and advance health for all through useful and broadly available tools. Together with our health provider partners, we share a common mission and believe nobody should be left behind, especially vulnerable and underserved populations. With this large, de-identified dataset and scalable technology, we can work together to deliver health services to the people who need it most.
Building a World-Changing Team
With technical advancements in the cloud, AI, and machine learning, we have the technical infrastructure to transform health in the same way other industries have been wholly digitally transformed – from finance to travel to shopping. Of course, health data is the most precious of data. Structuring, normalizing, machine learning, and visualizing this data requires a dedicated, world class technology team with experience building data platforms at scale. Our team is growing rapidly. We are looking for the best talent to join our mission – our job openings are here.
Imagining a Healthier Future
Over the next months our team will be focused on building our data platform and earning the appropriate security certifications. This year, we expect to begin delivering insights from the Truveta platform. This is what inspires me every day.
World-changing innovation requires big imaginations. Imagine the next time one of your loved ones is sick and being able to search for what has worked for others in the exact situation. Imagine if physicians could learn how thousands of similar patients were treated for like conditions with a single click. Imagine a vaccine for pandemics like COVID-19 in half the time. Imagine dramatic advances in serving patients with auto-immune conditions. Imagine finding a cure for certain cancers.
We imagine this potential. We want to build Truveta for everyone in the world to lead a healthier and happier life. In a decade, when we look back at the crazy year that was 2020, we hope Truveta will be one of the world-changing innovations inspired by this challenging chapter in our history.
Stay well,
— Terry