Benefits of standardised, interoperable health data sources for researchers
Scaling up health data research
The medical breakthroughs of the future will increasingly be defined by our ability to collect, connect, collaborate and understand health-relevant data in vast quantities. When researchers can analyse big health data, under appropriate data protection controls, they will better understand disease and prevention, and be better equipped to speed up the development of new medicines, treatments and devices.
The COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted the research need for data connection across health systems. Never before has the health science community all over the world rallied to such an extent, ramping up efforts into treatment and vaccination research & development, making unprecedented use of data analysis and data‐sharing technologies to better understand the virus and its transmission.
Several initiatives were launched to facilitate open access to data sources and to intermediary study results for researchers to build on.
COVID-19 and MS-Global Data Sharing Initiative
One example is the COVID-19 and MS – Global Data Sharing Initiative, a very successful program of COVID-19 research using standardised data, set up by the Multiple Sclerosis Data Alliance and the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation. This collaboration could not have been achieved without interoperability standards.
