PEDSnet, a data platform that eight children's hospitals contribute to, has for the first time demonstrated its reporting component, which is capable of scanning large troves of information to glean findings that would have previously not been apparent.
The platform houses detailed information from EHRs, millions of healthcare visits and other sources confidentially and anonymously, John Barnard, MD, president of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, wrote in a column for The Columbus Dispatch. Dr. Barnard was present for the first demonstration of the reporting tool.
"Imagine being a mouse click away from detailed data on thousands of children hospitalized with asthma, type 1 diabetes or congenital heart disease. Imagine symptoms, family history, blood-test results, X-ray findings, surgery and medications all connected in one shared resource," Dr. Barnard wrote. "And imagine how powerful this tool might be in discovering risk factors, protective influences and the best treatments for virtually any condition that affects children."
Using the platform's infrastructure to integrate relevant information from external networks enables a widened scope with which to study diseases such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare disorder that some hospitals may rarely encounter. Using PEDSnet, however, researchers would have access to thousands of documented clinic visits and case studies of patients with the disease.
"Over a 30-year medical career, few research developments have excited me more than PEDSnet," Dr. Barnard wrote. "When one imagines what it can become in the next decade, its value and utility for children's health are mindboggling. It most certainly will define a powerful new way to do child-health research that was unimaginable a few years ago."