Datavant Acquires Health Data Link to Expand Academic Ecosystem

- Health Data Link is the leading data linkage provider for academic medical centers, medical research institutes, and government agencies, connecting data for over 40 institutions

- The acquisition strengthens Datavant's open health data ecosystem; Datavant's technology helps hundreds of healthcare organizations safely link their data to improve medical research and care while protecting patient privacy

News provided by

Datavant

Jun 03, 2019, 10:30 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, June 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Datavant, the leader in helping healthcare organizations safely link their data to improve medical research and patient care, today announced that it has acquired Health Data Link, the leading data linkage provider for academic medical centers, nonprofits, and government agencies. The acquisition strengthens Datavant's offering to health systems, research institutes, and government agencies, and offers clients the ability to connect a variety of data types in Datavant's open ecosystem in support of innovative medical research.

Over 40 institutions utilize Health Data Link's health data connectivity solution, which will become seamlessly integrated with Datavant's ecosystem of over 200 institutions that have made their health data linkable.

"We're excited to take the excellent work that the Health Data Link team has done in the academic, nonprofit, and government communities, and to link that to our open data ecosystem where all health data can be connected," said Travis May, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Datavant. "Our mission is to connect the world's health data to improve patient outcomes, and we're excited to further our traction in the research community."

"From the start, our goal has been to build trusted data sharing networks to support medical research and drive improved patient outcomes," said Abel Kho, Co-founder of Health Data Link. "When we met Travis and the broader Datavant team, we knew that we had found the right partner to carry our vision forward. We look forward to working together to connect health data sources and users across the entire healthcare system."

"Bringing health data together without compromising patient privacy is the defining health policy issue of our time. Together, we can make integrated health data a reality, which means better research, better care, and improved outcomes. We are excited about the incredible strength of the Datavant team and the path ahead," said Jacob Plummer, CEO of Health Data Link.

Jacob Plummer will join Datavant as General Manager, Health Systems and Government. Jasmin Phua, Co-founder and Chief Data Officer of Health Data Link, will serve as Head of Health Systems and Government Solutions. Abel Kho, MD, MS, FACMI, and Co-founder of Health Data Link will serve as a strategic advisor to the company.

Customer Quotes & Use Cases:

In Chicago, investigators at the Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (CAPRiCORN) have used the Health Data Link solution to connect data on over 10 million patients for the development of novel community-based direct patient recruitment techniques to determine trial eligibility for clinical trials, to identify trends in health service utilization for patients with care fragmented across institutions, and to provide accurate patient cohort estimates for academic, government, and industry sponsored research.

In New Orleans, Health Data Link is used by leading research network REACHnet, to link data across health care institutions and payers. REACHnet provides a centralized, integrated, medical research informatics infrastructure that brings together health systems, nonprofits, universities, payers, government, and private healthcare companies. "Health Data Link has played an instrumental role in enabling us to establish a platform with standardized, harmonized, high-quality longitudinal patient data. It has significantly accelerated our ability to link data from various partners including health systems, payers, public health disease registries, state death registries, and Medicaid," said Thomas Carton, Principal Investigator, REACHnet and Chief Data Officer, Louisiana Public Health Institute.

As a representative linking engagement powered by Health Data Link, PRACnet, a patient centered health plan research network consisting of Humana and Medical Outcomes Management, collaborated with REACHnet to link health systems data in Greater New Orleans in support of an antibiotic study. The work was sponsored by the Patient Centered Research Outcomes Institute (PCORI), and the ability to link de-identified patient data across the two networks was key to achieving the goals of the study. Vinit Nair, Principal Investigator for PRACnet, said, "This study utilized Health Data Link's technology to identify overlapping member populations, combining and reconciling prescription, medical, and dispensing information by linking claims and clinical records. This analysis enabled a more accurate understanding of the effects of antibiotic utilization while helping organizations protect patient privacy."

Prior to the acquisition, Datavant had established its own relationships with a number of academic medical centers. "We have been working with Datavant since last fall to help us de-identify and safely share data among academic institutions participating in the Sight Outcomes Research Collaborative (SOURCE), a repository capturing detailed clinical data on patients receiving eye care services at academic medical centers throughout the United States," said Joshua Stein, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Michigan. "The ability to link de-identified patient data on those with ocular diseases across medical centers enables researchers to identify risk factors for ocular diseases, study surgical outcomes, assess for disparities in care, perform quality improvement initiatives, and leverage such data for deep learning and artificial intelligence research projects. We're excited to hear about Datavant's acquisition of HDL and look forward to working with the expanded team going forward."

About Datavant

Datavant's mission is to connect the world's health data. Datavant works with data owners and users to ensure that data can be connected to power next-generation analytics and applications while protecting patient privacy. Datavant is headquartered in San Francisco. Learn more about Datavant at www.datavant.com.

About Health Data Link

Health Data Link enables research data collaboratives to form private data linkage networks based on their unique data governance needs. Their customers and partners use these trust networks to power comparative effectiveness health outcomes research, clinical trial recruitment, and de-identified patient locator services. Learn more about Health Data Link at www.healthdata.link.

Datavant Contact

Bob Borek, Head of Marketing
[email protected]

SOURCE Datavant