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Aridhia and CCRG – Supporting Critical Care Research
Aridhia is delighted to be working with the Critical Care Research Group to develop tools and systems to better understand clinicians’ needs and access to data during health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Critical Care Research Group
The Critical Care Research Group (CCRG) is one of Australia’s leading critical care research facilities. Headquartered in Brisbane, CCRG is dedicated to improving outcomes relating to the many issues facing critically ill patients, including heart and lung disease, sepsis, and other critical conditions. Their clinician-driven, patient-focused research aims to support clinical decision-making and patient management resulting in improved levels of care and outcomes, and reduced healthcare costs.
COVID Critical
Early in 2020, CCRG established the COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium (COVID Critical). COVID Critical is a global alliance of healthcare professionals and researchers committed to identifying the most effective treatments for COVID-19.
During the height of the pandemic, COVID Critical rallied representatives from over 60 countries to collect data from more than 25,000 patients, creating the world’s largest database of COVID-19 ICU patient information. Over 400 hospitals took part in the global effort, collectively gathering over 55 million datapoints.
Aridhia has supported two main elements of the Consortium’s mission – the development of the COVID Critical Dashboard, a clinician-designed dashboard that provides insights into patient outcomes, and the provision of the Aridhia Digital Research Environment, a trusted research environment designed specifically for collaborative health data science and research.
The Dashboard
The COVID Critical Dashboard enables an audited and controlled data sharing approach to tackle COVID-19 health challenges by securely distilling and displaying data on tens of thousands of ICU patient outcomes from around the globe. It enables secure and audited access to the COVID Critical dataset to gain deeper understanding of how clinicians treated COVID-19 ICU patients.
Upon logging in, users are presented with a patient outcomes indicator. This shows the global aggregated patient data and the clinical progression of those in critical care.
A Scenario Builder tool allows Dashboard users to filter the data based on patient demographics, symptoms, comorbidities, blood values, etc. Upon filtering, the Dashboard displays the data, giving an overview of what interventions occurred and their outcomes, along with further details about the patients’ ICU stay.
Above: An example of the Dashboard’s Scenario Builder in action.
“COVID Critical built what is widely regarded as the world’s most in-depth database of COVID-19 ICU patient data, and now with thanks to Aridhia’s Digital Research Environment, we can accelerate the availability and use of this deidentified data for biomedical research and better patient outcomes.”
The Digital Research Environment (DRE)
The Aridhia DRE allows researchers to dive deeper than is possible in the Dashboard, using a synthetic version of the COVID Critical dataset. A suite of built-in analysis tools and resources can be bolstered by other user-specific tooling, code and analysis pipelines in a space where teams can collaborate with study partners around the world while taking advantage of a comprehensive audit and assured data security and governance controls.
Looking forward
The Dashboard is now available to any researcher or clinician internationally, and CCRG and Aridhia are collaborating with a group of world leading statisticians and researchers to optimise the effectiveness of these tools, with the ultimate goal of helping clinicians be better prepared for future pandemics.
You can register for access to the COVID Critical Dashboard here: https://live.covid-critical-icu.com/