Fueling Clinical and Translational Research in Appalachia: Informatics Platform Approach (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The Appalachian population is distinct, not just culturally and geographically, but also in its health care needs, facing the most health care disparities in the United States. Thus, to meet these unique demands, bringing in modern technologies to Appalachian medical centers and utilizing these technologies to develop solutions becomes critical. This requires the foundation of a centralized data warehouse with an arsenal of analytics and data science tools to transform healthcare data into actionable clinical interventions. It’s an especially challenging task given the fragmented state of medical data within Appalachia and the need for integration of other types of data such as environmental, social, economic, etc. with medical data. OBJECTIVE This paper presents the initial experience of developing an integrated platform at a mid-level Appalachian academic medical center along with its initial uses. METHODS The Appalachian Informatics Platform was developed by the Appalachian Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Division of Clinical Informatics and consists of four major components: a centralized clinical data warehouse, modeling (statistical and machine learning), visualization, and model evaluation. RESULTS The Appalachian informatics platform is functional and has supported several research efforts since its implementation. CONCLUSIONS The platform provides an inexpensive yet seamless way to translate clinical and translational research ideas into clinical applications for regions like Appalachia that have limited resources and a largely rural population.