HCA forms COVID-19 research consortium with AHRQ, other systems

HCA HEALTHCARE IS LEADING a nationwide consortium of research and healthcare organizations to investigate the COVID-19 coronavirus.

HCA announced last week that it is sharing its own clinical data with select institutions, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in an effort by HCA to leverage its large repository of data on COVID-19 patients amassed through its network of 187 hospitals. Hospital giant HCA has clinical data from 110,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 2020.

“We have always believed that the privilege of scale is not size, it’s the ability to accelerate learning,” said Dr. Jonathan Perlin, HCA’s chief medical officer.

“We thought, if we could open these data safely and effectively to colleagues and the federal government and the best minds in academia, we can accelerate what is known about COVID and its treatment, and by doing so, save lives,” Perlin said.

The clinical data will be de-identified so personalized information about patients isn’t shared, according to HCA.

Dr. David Meyers, acting director of AHRQ, called the consortium “innovative,” and added in a statement that “it has both the potential to rapidly produce new evidence to improve the safety and quality of care for people with COVID-19 and serve as a model for the development of a national learning health system.”

The consortium, called COVID-19 Consortium of HCA Healthcare and Academia for Research GEneration, or CHARGE, hasn’t yet selected specific topics for research. It is currently receiving research proposals from the participating groups.

A leadership council com

prising representatives from each member of the consortium will determine what research projects are selected. Perlin said he expects research to begin within the next six weeks.

Some potential research opportunities are on demographics of patients who contract COVID, preexisting conditions that result in worse COVID-19 outcomes and the efficacy of current treatments. ●