The COVID-19 pandemic has made the public aware of the close relationship between big data analytics and public health. For even the most casually interested, metrics and dashboards focused on hospitalization rates, new cases and deaths, and all sorts of data that give people a tangible link to the wider pandemic. enthusiastically shared. But public health and medical practitioners will tell you that analytics and data-driven decision-making have been at the core of the healthcare industry since before the computing age began.
In a recent GovFuture podcast, Dr. Susan Gregaric, Associate Director of Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), shared insights and details on how the NIH is using advanced analytics to advance data. shared. This includes the unique challenges he faces at NIH in leveraging advanced analytics in areas related to data privacy and security.
Comprehensive planning for data
Dr. Susan Gregric, NIH
As part of her role, Dr. Gregarik says her office is leading the implementation of NIH’s Data Science Strategic Plan, taking advantage of emerging opportunities to develop cutting-edge data across NIH’s 27 laboratories and centers. He said that he is committed to promoting science and that he is focusing on the following activities: Data interoperability, platform interoperability, data accessibility, data standards and standardization, data reuse. It also promotes the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, as well as supports the establishment of policies and related privacy, ethics and data sovereignty policies.
“This is a very exciting time to be in the field of data science, with the truly significant advances we have just witnessed recently in artificial intelligence and generative AI,” Dr. Susan Gregaric shared on the podcast. . “AI and advanced analytics will accelerate scientific discovery and bring cures and cures to keep people healthy. So his one of our policies and his one of our priorities is , the ethical use of advanced analytical technologies like artificial intelligence.”
She also shared insights about a new program called the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) program. “AIM-AHEAD is working with researchers and institutions across the country to strengthen the participation and representation of researchers and communities in the development of AI models and improve their ability to leverage this emerging technology… AIM- AHEAD is focused on recruiting new students and new academics, funding new cutting-edge programs and priorities, and making a significant impact on AI models and the AI community.”
Enhance functionality with the help of AI
Dr. Gregric also said that with the use of AI, the NIH is realizing “speeding up the analysis of diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities.” For example, not so long ago, if you had an infant born with a rare genetic disorder, you would test it, get its sequence, annotate it, and try to figure out what the rare genetic disorder was. Then it took a very long time. . However, the recent advent of AI has made it possible to sequence the entire genome of an infant very quickly compared to the large number of mutations in over 13,000 inherited diseases. And in less than five minutes, he increases his ability to pinpoint exactly what the disorder really is and develop the treatment the infant needs. This is a huge time saver when observing small children and babies born with rare genetic disorders. So these are some of the cutting edge technologies we are working with both to enhance our ability to use AI and to actually use AI to speed the care provided to our patients. is only part of ”
Growing privacy and ethical concerns related to health data
The use of private medical data is always accompanied by data security, privacy and ethical concerns. When asked about the unique challenges the NIH faces in leveraging advanced analytics and working with complex data sets while ensuring data privacy and security, Dr. Gregaric said: .
“For institutions like mine that work with medical data, there are significant challenges, not only in terms of data access, but also data privacy. We need data, which means we need to access data across a large number of repositories.Currently, the NIH supports about 80 access-controlled data repositories.These are human data A data repository that holds the data privacy and security of participants.
Previously, access to these repositories required researchers to go through a rather complicated process. And you have to do this multiple times. It was quite duplicative and really very annoying. So we recently standardized how researchers can access access-controlled data repositories. This is called Research Health Services (RHS). RHS provides single sign-on functionality. We currently work with nine of our largest data systems, with more in the process of being implemented. In this way, sharing an authentication system across data repositories standardizes how researchers log in and, essentially, how potential data breaches and data security issues are tracked and recorded. ”
In addition to interviews on the GovFuture Podcast, Dr. Susan Gregarik shared additional insights on the use and adoption of AI, as well as advanced analytics, as a featured panelist at the GovFuture Forum DC event at George Mason University (GMU). bottom.
Disclosure: Ronald Schmelzer is the Executive Director of GovFuture.
