58 practices in 39 states and the District of Columbia have joined CancerLinQ, the American Society of Clinical Oncology's big data initiative, which seeks to improve the quality of care for people with cancer. It is already up and running in a number of practices, and drawing on approximately three-quarters of a million patient records from across the United States, the Society announced Monday.
CancerLinQ, a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of the ASCO, has also entered into a collaborative agreement with Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers, representing senior informatics leaders and chief data scientists at the nation's NCI-designated Cancer Centers and other major medical and research institutions. This new collaboration follows the recent announcement that CancerLinQ has joined a strategic relationship with SAP on its SAP Connected Health platform.
To fulfill its goal of helping cancer care providers improve the quality and value of care, CancerLinQ analyzes millions of cancer patient medical records, uncovering patterns and trends, and measuring their care against that of their peers and recommended guidelines. The Society said the platform is the only effort of its kind being driven by a nonprofit physician organization, and it leverages the combined expertise of 40,000 of the world's leading oncologists who comprise ASCO's membership.
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The collaborative agreement with Cancer Informatics is expected to bring the nation's leading clinical, genomics and biomedical informaticists, academicians and data scientists together with the oncology community to help improve cancer care. CancerLinQ and Cancer Informatics will launch joint initiatives to engage informatics leaders nationally, establish an informatics advisory council for CancerLinQ comprised of leading experts from cancer centers across the nation, and place a CancerLinQ representative on a Cancer Informatics leadership board.
The initiative is anticipated to promote cross-participation in a variety of avenues, including key forums and programmatic development.
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CancerLinQ runs on SAP Connected Health, built on the SAP HANA platform, a multi-purpose data management and application platform created by SAP. On May 18, SAP announced that CancerLinQ would be one of the first strategic relationships on SAP Connected Health, which will grow to include an ecosystem of partners that influence every aspect of the cycle of care -- from payers and providers to researchers and life sciences companies.
The company continues to actively recruit practices nationwide. Participants range from small private practices to some of the nation's leading cancer centers, including, most recently, Intermountain Healthcare.
CancerLinQ CEO Kevin Fitzpatrick said in a statement that doctors "are demanding this kind of collaboration and support so they can easily stay on top of new evidence and new treatment approaches, and deliver exactly the care their patients need."
Twitter: @JELagasse