Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and the Mercy healthcare system today said they inked a data sharing and analysis deal to gather clinical evidence for “medical device innovation and patient access.”
The program aims to gather efficacy and safety data generated during routine care, rather than via expensive and time-consuming clinical trials. The first phase is designed to collect anonymized data from some 80,000 heart failure patients treated with cardiac resynchronization therapy.
“Having the ability to study patient care pathways and conditions before and after exposure to a medical device is crucial to understanding how those devices perform outside of the controlled clinical trial setting,” strategic scientific operations SVP Dr. Rick Kuntz said in prepared remarks. “By partnering together, Mercy and Medtronic have set out to create a comprehensive and economical evidence generation model that ultimately allows patients to benefit from the latest therapies and technologies as early as possible.”
“This has the potential to improve patient care by using advanced data analytics,” added Dr. Joseph Drozda, director of outcomes research at Mercy, the nation’s fifth-largest Catholic healthcare network. “Heart failure is a complex, progressive condition. To more effectively treat patients, we need a better understanding of how they are responding to treatment and what leads to better health. This model will lead to evidence-based insights for our clinical teams, and better health for our patients.”
Mercy’s network includes 44 acute care and specialty hospitals and 700 physician practices in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.