Health Data for London launch
Barts Health is proud to be one of the founder members of a data-sharing partnership to cement London’s status as a global player in life sciences.
As hosts of one of the largest and most diverse data sets in the NHS, we are joining forces with other teaching trusts in the capital to create a single data infrastructure.
Shane DeGaris, our group chief executive, joined Caroline Clarke, NHS regional director for London, to launch the Health Data for London initiative during London Life Sciences Week. It builds on the Barts Health Data Platform, a secure environment offering access to the electronic health records of an economically and ethnically diverse population of over three million individuals.
Over a million new patient encounters are added every year, offering researchers an unrivalled repository of anonymised data to mine for insights and innovations.
Currently 25 studies are active on the BHDP, looking to predict health risks and develop personalised treatments across a variety of diseases and conditions.
The pan-London plan is to work together so we can use databanks like this for the collective benefit of the NHS in the capital and be a global innovation hub.
Generating insights from data is key to the growth of life sciences and its ability to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes.
Ann Hepworth, group chief strategy officer, said the challenge facing London hospitals was how to collaborate on a single data infrastructure while maintaining their identities amid the competition for new ideas.
“London has some of the best teaching hospitals in the world yet at the moment our data is fragmented and we risk failing behind to single-trust cities like Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester,” she said.
“Looking ahead the real competition is not going to be between London institutions, but between London and other global cities like San Franciso, Boston and Singapore. By uniting across the capital we can create one of the most important linked data sets anywhere in the world.”