Using data sharing to learn together and improve care

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Ashley De Bie (left), intensivist at Catharina Hospital, along with information
Ashley De Bie (left), intensivist at Catharina Hospital, along with information analysts Milou van Keulen (center) and Wilma Compagner (right). Photo: Catharina Hospital
In researching this "potential gold mine," Catharina Hospital is working with e/MTIC partners Philips and Eindhoven University of Technology.

Intensive Cares in Dutch hospitals want to improve the quality of care by bringing together data from different patients and hospitals and learning structurally from this. For hospitals using the HiX electronic patient record, the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven is taking the lead.

In Intensive Care, medical data play a very important role, says Ashley De Bie , intensivist at Catharina Hospital. Additionally, De Bie is a PhD researcher at the TU/e Department of Electrical Engineering in the Signal Processing Systems group.

"Because we often cannot talk to these frail patients, we continuously measure a lot in our patients. This allows us to properly monitor their health and detect deterioration early to prevent complications. We can measure more and more precisely through all the technical advances, but this provides so much data that it becomes difficult for a doctor or nurse to oversee everything."

And that’s a shame because all that data is a potential gold mine to improve patient treatment. How nice it would be to be able to tap into it. "With computer power, technology, and artificial intelligence emerging now, it will be possible to look at this data in an automated way and recognize important trends. Computers can alert us earlier and provide targeted advice to treat patients better and more patient-centered," De Bie said.

Filtering out noise

Some conditions you see very often in a hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, but some rarely, only once or twice a year. "That’s why it’s good if all’hospitals start sharing their data. Because the larger the dataset, the more you can filter out the noise that negatively affects the quality of the advice."

It is also crucial that every hospital notes and submits the data similarly. ICUdata, a non-profit foundation, is, in a nutshell, the collection and analysis center for Intensive Care Netherlands. Catharina Hospital plays a major role in organizing the delivery of data.

"Dutch hospitals and their Intensive Care units use different electronic patient records. We use HiX from Chipsoft as our electronic patient records, the market leader in the Netherlands. Thanks to our extensive experience with HiX, we are now going to help other HiX hospitals within this project of ICUdata so that everyone can benefit," De Bie explained.

He continues: "Ten years ago, our Healthcare Intelligence department, the hospital’s data analysts, and the ICT Operations department saw this development and acted on it. These technical teams are very important for Catharina Hospital because we are now reaping mega benefits thanks to their knowledge and expertise."

"Not only for daily practice but also for the recently launched Expertise Center AI, the regional innovative partnership e/MTIC (including Eindhoven University of Technology, Philips) that has been growing for some time, and projects with medical tech companies such as SmartCare and DeepBreath."

"Our data analysts know exactly how our ’data library’ is put together, where everything is and how to find it within the patient record. We want to transfer that knowledge as a public organization so that everything can be recorded and shared uniformly."

Looking at wider European cooperation

If that is well organized, step 2 follows: learning from each other and thus improving and innovating care.

De Bie: "Suppose that in Rotterdam they can take a patient off the ventilator much more quickly or if they have a higher survival rate for people with a certain clinical condition in Amsterdam; then these are very valuable insights because, with ICU data, we can then learn why things are going better in those hospitals."

"By aggregating data, we, as the Dutch healthcare system, can learn from each other’s successes and apply this knowledge to improve care. For example, you can use a predictive computer model that supports intensivists in making discharge decisions."

Cooperation is not limited to the Netherlands. To De Bie’s delight, opportunities for broader European cooperation are also being explored, offering even more opportunities for sharing knowledge and improving care standards across national borders.

Catharina Ziekenhuis recently obtained the so-called NEN75-10 certificate. This means that the hospital complies with all laws and regulations regarding the sharing and use of (untraceable and anonymized) patient data.