April 24, 2020: In today’s episode of This Week in Health IT News, we speak with Dr. John Halamka, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, about the national COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition – a private-sector led response that brings together healthcare organizations, technology firms, nonprofits, academia, and startups to preserve the healthcare delivery system and help protect U.S. populations. We also discuss data-driven outcomes and digital tools like GPS-contact tracing and novel apps, as well as the challenges of potentially dealing with sensitive identified data and how to protect it. John goes on to discuss the importance of platforms in getting rid of misinformation, analyzing data, and sharing knowledge. For all this and some links to free, open-source resources on the COVID-19 pandemic, make sure to listen in! 

Key Points From This Episode:

• John explains the work he has been doing with the national COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition.
• How to gather comprehensive data sets from disparate sources into a central repository.
• Using a federated analytic approach that gets beyond data use agreements to create a registry.
• Creating and updating automated systems to comply with a FHIR situational awareness standard.
• John explores some digital tools that have been developed regarding contact tracing.
• The role that apps and platforms need to play in dispelling misinformation about COVID-19.
• Mayo Clinic has put mechanisms in place to quickly de-identify data, centralize, and analyze it.
• How much and what type of testing do we need moving forward?