Emerald Clinics Ltd (ASX:EMD) has been appointed program manager for the development of a national Clinical Data and Analytics Platform (CDAP) of COVID-19 patient cases.
As part of a partnership between several Australian state health bodies, the Federal Government and universities, the platform aims to collect clinical data from confirmed COVID-19 patients and a variety of sources in real-time.
The data will then be analysed to inform predictive models that can support point-of-care decision making by clinicians across likely disease progression as well as treatment options for each patient.
Additionally, the platform is expected to underpin a series of planned adaptive trials of COVID-19 treatment protocols while allowing for forecasting of likely demand on health services.
“Unique expertise”
Managing director Dr Michael Winlo said: “We are very pleased to be chosen to help co-ordinate the development of this platform as it is a recognition of Emerald’s unique expertise in real-world evidence and building learning health systems.”
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Leading program management
The project has been established by the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre and is a partnership between NSW Health, Queensland Health, QUT, the University of Sydney, and Monash University.
Emerald Clinics was selected by the University of Sydney to lead the program management across the entire project including coordinating the data integration efforts across multiple health services and the analytical model design.
University of Sydney epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert Professor Tom Snelling said: “Medical professionals are currently working with incomplete and inaccurate information and we expect CDAP to provide a clear, national data picture on the stages of COVID-19, the impact of the disease on the individual, as well as their care and recovery needs.”
Managed by frontline clinicians
The Emerald platform will be managed in close association with frontline clinicians across participating institutions.
It will also utilise existing state and territory resources and digital capabilities.
Emerald’s business is focused on developing valuable high-quality real-world evidence (RWE) data around the safe and effective use of medicines, to improve patient care, to identify novel uses of existing or new therapeutics and to explore the post-approval performance of certain medicines, all leveraging Emerald’s proprietary data platform.
RWE is observational data (drawn from health records, patient vital sign tracking technologies, medicine usage patterns, side effect reporting and other useful data), that is obtained outside the context of the pharmaceutical industry’s usual 'randomised controlled trials' and is mostly generated during routine interaction with a patient in a real-world setting.
Emerald’s data platform continues to expand with multiple clinical trial and collaboration opportunities already secured in addition to this CDAP opportunity.
The company expects to further leverage its unique data gathering experience across multiple verticals in the coming months as the health system pivots strongly to remote and contactless clinical trials and service delivery.