Health IT, Hospitals

14 major health systems launch data insights company

In an unusual move, 14 major providers — including Trinity Health, CommonSpirit Health and Tenet — have come together to launch a data analytics company. Insights derived from the company's platform will be available to providers, biopharma companies and scientific researchers working to advance patient care.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented collaboration in the healthcare industry.

A group of 14 health systems, including some of the biggest in the country, have joined together to launch Truveta, a data analytics company.

The company is building a platform that will structure and normalize de-identified patient data from the 14 founding systems. The platform will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to derive clinical insights.

“Truveta was formed with a goal of harnessing the power of our shared data to derive insights that benefit the greater good,” said Rich Roth, chief strategic innovation officer for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, in an email. “Specifically, these insights will help us diagnose faster and treat more effectively, advance health equity, identify and treat rare diseases, and shorten the time for research.” CommonSpirit Health is one of the health systems launching the company.

Truveta will provide an aggregate analysis of conditions, therapies and prognoses to physicians, biopharma companies, researchers and others, said Roth.

These will be available in the form of different offerings, from freely available data to complex datasets for purchase, said Lisa Gurry, chief marketing officer of Truveta, in an email.

Though the idea for the company was born in 2018, the urgent need for it became truly apparent last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, Truveta could have helped providers gain a faster understanding of how Covid-19 patients were responding to certain treatments as well as about the disease’s disproportionate impact on certain patient populations, said Roth.

There is no dearth of data analysis and insights platforms in the U.S. healthcare market, but Truveta’s access to data is unique. Being provider-led, it has access to a huge swath of data on patients from different regions, racial groups and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“The size and diversity of the data differentiate [the platform] tremendously,” said Marcus Shipley, senior vice president, innovation, and chief information officer of Livonia, Michigan-based Trinity Health, a founding member of Truveta.

“Other health data companies are also very focused, maybe on a specific set of use cases. I think Truveta is going to have broader applicability,” he said in a phone interview.

Truveta is still in the process of developing the platform, and it will likely be available later this year, Shipley said. The founding providers will help the company earn necessary security certifications to ensure that the data and patient privacy remain protected.

The company will be led by Terry Myerson, who formerly served as executive vice president at Microsoft. While there, Myerson led the development of Windows, Surface and Xbox and helped develop strategy.

“[The company’s] vision is to save lives with data,” said Truveta’s Gurry. “We see tremendous potential to help deliver personalized medicine, advance health equity and empower the health community with insights on how to best treat patients.”

In addition to CommonSpirit Health and Trinity Health, the following health systems comprise the founding members of Truveta:

  • AdventHealth in Altamonte Springs, Florida
  • Advocate Aurora Health in Milwaukee
  • Baptist Health of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville
  • Bon Secours Mercy Health in Cincinnati
  • Hawaii Pacific Health in Honolulu
  • Henry Ford Health System in Detroit
  • Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston
  • Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York
  • Novant Health in Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Providence in Renton, Washington
  • Sentara Healthcare in Norfolk, Virginia
  • Tenet Healthcare in Dallas

Together, these providers care for tens of millions of patients across 40 states.

Photo: Khanisorn Chaokla, Getty Images

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