Imagine a system in which doctors receive information about a patient who has had a stroke while still in an ambulance. Or that the data of thousands, millions of people can be used by a doctor to identify the best treatments for that patient with that tumor. These are two aspects of what digital medicine and big data could already allow today. But how does this scenario reconcile with that of handwritten medical records? With the difficulty of making computer systems from different regions talk, if not even two hospitals in the same region? Answer: with structural investments and with the involvement of all actors, starting from citizens, called to share their health data, from institutions, called to guarantee the safety, interoperability of databases and their efficient use, from doctors and by companies. The works to build a common road have already been underway for some time and for this reason the campaign was launched today “Roche Now, big data united for health”And a digital talk that includes 5 videos: a guide dedicated to citizens interested in understanding how the analysis of an enormous amount of health data can radically change the world of healthcare and improve the health of citizens.
So big data will revolutionize medicine
“The goal is to raise everyone’s awareness of issues such as Real World Data, Real World Evidence, Electronic Health Record, analyzing them from the point of view of the actors involved: from citizens to doctors, from institutions to technical experts in the sector and the media, with special attention to current events ”, said Ennio Tasciotti, scientist expert in medical biotechnology, as host of Roche Now Talk:“ We already have technology: algorithms exist and work well. The problem is their application. Resources must be found to be integrated and applied in reality. For this to happen, for some time now we have already been witnessing a convergence of skills in areas that until recently were considered waterproof silos “.
What is big data?
In the first Roche Now Talk, available from today, Tasciotti introduces the world of big data and explains its terminology; the second video-pill will focus on patients, with Antonio Gaudioso, President of Cittadinanzattiva; the third features Vincenzo Valentini, Deputy Scientific Director of the Gemelli Polyclinic, who analyzes the potential of big data for doctors; the fourth appointment brings the perspective of the institutions, represented by the former Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin; the fifth episode hosts the scientific director of the IIT (Italian Institute of Technology), Giorgio Metta, providing the technical vision on the subject. All the videos – which will be followed by other moments of in-depth analysis – will also be published in the coming weeks on LabRevolution.
If technology is on our side, however, we need to intervene on the barriers – organizational and bureaucratic – that still make it difficult to use big data in medicine. Barriers that the pandemic has made evident: in our country, in particular, the extreme heterogeneity of approach at the regional level represents a further limitation to the integrated analysis of health data. “Italy is a country rich in both real world data and the expertise of numerous research groups in the analysis of Real World Data – says Gianluca Trifirò, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Verona and member of the board of directors of the section clinic of the SIF Italian Society of Pharmacology) – which together with the SIMM (Italian Society of Leadership and Management in Medicine), sponsors the project: “Just think of the current regional administrative flows, general medicine and pediatric databases of free choice as well as the registers of pathology and drugs (AIFA registers), in addition to those that will increasingly be generated by wearable devices. However, in order for them to be put at the service of institutions and healthcare professionals, it is important to create and consolidate networks of healthcare databases and experts, which allow the integration of different types of data on the one hand and quick access to the large amount of high quality data to quickly generate Real World Evidence on drugs in emergency situations such as the one experienced during the current pandemic ”.
“It is necessary that the data be truly open, complete and intelligible, otherwise we risk creating enormous territorial differences in this field as well, which should rather be overcome thanks to a careful analysis of the data”, echoes Gaudioso of Cittadinanzattiva: “On this field not only is the future of our National Health System at stake, but also that of creating treatments that are increasingly centered on the real needs of citizens, and of the territories in which they live “.
Let’s not start from scratch: “The widespread use in healthcare of IT platforms for clinical, patient communication and administrative activities has already made available large volumes of continuously updated data that modern processing technologies, also based on artificial intelligence , make interoperable with each other and able to support clinical decisions, the personalization of prevention, diagnosis and treatment paths, and monitoring of organizational sustainability “, underlines Valentini:” Now it is up to the Government to pilot this transition to an increasingly based medicine on digital which represents an unavoidable challenge, full of opportunities and complexity but which can be an answer to ensure a 360 ° sustainability of the system “
As mentioned, however, in Italy, still, there is no optimal context: “The first barrier is administrative and bureaucratic, the second concerns a vision of privacy that poses some questions and the third is political, given by the fragmentation of the centers of regional power and management “, Lorenzin confirms:” So we have a system that slows down any type of transparency of the data but also the circulation: for example, in 2015 I approved a standard with the famous track of health data, several millions were invested euros but still in the same region individual structures speak different computer languages: it is necessary to accelerate development and make it mandatory. Fortunately, the Recovery plan is a highly funded goal of the system, but if a war begins between regions over not wanting to share data, we risk going from a top-tier country to a third world country. Through the management of the information flow and the real-time processing of big health data generated by local institutions, hospitals, pharmacies and patients, it will also be possible to monitor access to therapies and drug consumption, in order to increase the efficiency of the Health System through the timely analysis of purchases, the traceability of medical services and the effectiveness and effectiveness of the measures adopted to eliminate waste and reduce human error “.
Yet, if efforts were put into a system, Italy could even play a leading role in this transformation: “But to be competitive in this sector as a country – observes Metta – we will have to grow our computing power, invest in training and research, strengthen relations between the public and private sectors and concentrate on bringing new technologies to the market in a short time ”.
“Limited resources, growing needs, an older population, the need to react as quickly as possible and to broaden the coordinated action of healthcare even outside hospitals, involving, indeed making the territory more protagonist: all these elements define the space for within which it is necessary to operate ”, concludes Mattia Altini, President of SIMM:“ Digital innovation is the solution capable of transforming data into knowledge, decisions into processes, events into reactions ”.
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