HCA, Google Cloud Launch COVID-19 Data Sharing Platform

April 09, 2020 - HCA Healthcare and Google Cloud have established a new open data platform designed to promote data sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The COVID-19 National Response Portal aims to help hospitals and communities understand how the virus is spreading, as well as how to prepare and respond.

“COVID-19 presents a unique and significant challenge to healthcare providers, and collaboration and coordination is more important than ever to help ensure the best possible response,” said Dr. Edmund Jackson, HCA Healthcare’s chief data officer.

“While COVID-19 has driven us apart physically, we will respond to it by coming together digitally. We are proud to work alongside Google Cloud to create a platform to help address this urgent public health challenge.”

The COVID-19 National Response Portal, built and operated by SADA, is designed to help healthcare providers across the country safely share and display anonymous, aggregated metrics from hospital systems into a single platform. Running on Google Cloud, the platform shows a complete and real-time view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hospital systems across the country can submit data each day, providing metrics such as ICU bed supply and utilization; ventilator supply and utilization; total numbers of positive, negative, and pending COVID-19 test results; and total numbers of healthy patients who have been discharged.

Additionally, the platform will be able to leverage publicly available datasets, including data on local shelter-in-place policies, as well as traffic and mobility patterns, to show how public behaviors are impacting the spread of the virus.

“As healthcare providers, we are all battling the same crisis,” said Michael Wargo, vice president of emergency preparedness at HCA Healthcare.

“However, we are being faced with COVID-19 at different times and levels of severity. By pooling our data into one cohesive platform, we can share best practices to better prepare communities across the country for this unprecedented pandemic.”

As a learning health system, HCA Healthcare uses data from approximately 35 million annual patient encounters to improve care. As part of the project, HCA will provide statistical data from 185 hospitals, and has invited 4,000 hospitals across the country to join and share data on the platform.

For Google Cloud, the COVID-19 National Response Portal adds to the tech giant’s efforts to collect and disseminate data about the pandemic. The company recently announced that it would allow researchers, data scientists, and analysts to access coronavirus datasets and build analytics solutions.

“Data always plays a critical role in the ability to research, study, and combat public health emergencies, and nowhere is this more true than in the case of a global crisis,” Chad W. Jennings, BigQuery product manager and GIS lead, and Shane Glass, developer advocate, wrote in a blog post.

“Access to data sets—and tools that can analyze that data at cloud scale—are increasingly essential to the research process, and are particularly necessary in the global response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).”

With this new platform, Google Cloud, HCA, and SADA are further facilitating data sharing and access to accelerate solutions for COVID-19.

“Healthcare organizations need access to accurate and timely information around the country to plan for care and respond to COVID-19,” said Philip Moyer, Vice President, Industry Sales at Google Cloud. “We’re proud to team up with HCA Healthcare and SADA in the launch of this important new data resource for care providers on the front lines.”

HCA, Google Cloud, and SADA are in the process of sharing additional details and onboarding additional hospitals. The COVID-19 National Response Portal is expected to go live to the public next week. Hospitals interested in learning more or submitting data can click here.