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Creating a unique platform for medical data processing is the last daring bet for Wallonia. They announced on Thursday to invest 1.2 million euros in the INAH project.
Big data fits everywhere. Its health use will soon no longer be a futuristic utopia. Institute of Analytics for Health or INAH for intimates, this is the name of this avant-garde Walloon project announced Thursday by Ministers Jeholet and Greoli . It is part of the CATCH plan launched in 2016 for the growth of employment in Charleroi. It is therefore quite natural that the platform will settle in the Biopark carolo.
Concretely, the INAH will exploit the whole of Walloon Health Network already dependent on the medical data Walloon patients. "This is a kind of piping that provides access to data from hospitals and general practitioners" explains its president Philippe Olivier. 43% of the Walloon population is registered in this network, ie 50 million searchable medical documents.
50 million
million
This is the number of medical documents available in the Walloon Health Network.
Improving the Effectiveness of Treatments
The system will operate with an abundance of highly structured data from physician and hospital databases . It can therefore generate algorithms in the network, a real artificial intelligence.
The lucky beneficiaries of this technology are research centers, hospitals, but also biotechnology companies. For example, they will be able to know the blood glucose level in a target group of the population In a first step, this artificial intelligence will then make it possible to test the effectiveness of treatments at (very) large scale. By mixing this mbad of data, the algorithm will predict whether the patient will be able to respond to the therapy. He will then alert the doctor in charge who can inform his client.
Predicting Patients at Risk
In a second step (this is where the DeLorean belt must be hooked), this technology will detect patients at risk for certain diseases . "This data medicine is also prevention " explains Bruno Schroder, chairman of the Board of CETIC, the body responsible for coordination between project stakeholders. "The system can also establish correlations to draw conclusions and open new avenues of research " adds Philippe Olivier. If the idea makes you dream, you have to come back to the present and be patient.
"The system will be able to establish correlations and open up new avenues of research. "
Philippe Olivier
President of the Walloon Health Network
For now, this use of data will increase the success of drugs and reduce their costs . OncoDNA, a company specializing in cancer characterization, is involved in the pilot project process. Its president Jean Stephenne affirms that this technology will considerably increase the chances of survival of the patient. "The effectiveness of the treatment today is 20 to 25%, it is very low, while it can costing between 50 and 100,000 euros a year, and if we get more specific about how medicines work, we will improve their success and lower prices. " Artificial intelligence will also reduce the cost of patient acquisition for start-ups developing new treatments
Extending to the whole of Belgium
The INAH project also aims to create even if the CATCH plan does not dare to advance any figures yet. The pilot process should take between 10 and 12 months . In terms of funding, the Walloon government will grant 1.2 million euros to CETIC to realize this infrastructure.
The final objective: to affect Belgium as a whole . "Belgium is the country where there are the most clinical studies per capita, notes Jean Stephenne of OncoDNA. It is necessary to consolidate this position of leader." The INAH office will also be able to use any other database set up in the Benelux … and in Europe. The future is now?
And data protection?
This
technology requires first quality data, ie comparable. It is then necessary to face the biggest challenge of the
project: to structure hospital data, to harmonize them according to a
common standard . "It is the role of
CETIC to develop this computer architecture, an access structure
abstract to process data in an easier way " declares
Bruno Schroder. If some people will fear here a breach for data theft,
that they rebadure themselves. The Walloon Network deals with anonymizing this big data . "It will seal the net between
Health Data and Patient Identification ", clarifies its
President Philippe Olivier. " The
companies have access only to results, never to customer data. We
sends them only relevant information that is kept confidential. We
locks data security by keeping them in the Health Network
Walloon " adds Augustin Coppée, in charge of the file within the
CATCH cell. The requests of the companies will also have to be validated by a
ethics committee to reduce risks. And it will take still get the agreement
patients for the use of data.
No
panic so, you do not risk – in theory – a leak to the Wikileaks. The
Walloon network does not store this huge mbad of data; they stay
in their initial base, in the hospital or at your doctor's office. In practice,
the tool will click on a hyperlink to access the document. crossed
the fingers because a leak would be here on a different level than Julian's shot
Assange. "We hope to have 1 Walloon
out of 2 registered in the network by the end of the year, announces Philippe
Olivier. In the long run, the whole population
Registered Walloon would represent about 100 million medical documents . "
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