NEWS
September 20, 2023
NIH Grant for Baton Rouge Health District Research Data Collaborative
BATON ROUGE, LA — A recent $1.3 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be used in-part to establish a Baton Rouge Health District Research Data Collaborative, to support the efforts of regional healthcare institutions to share health data for research purposes across a common structure.
“Coalition building among our regional health and life science institutions for the betterment of community health is central to the Baton Rouge Health District,” said Steven Ceulemans, Executive Director of the Baton Rouge Health District. “I can think of no better example of this synergy than by uniting Pennington Biomedical’s world-class research strengths with the clinical expertise and information within our regional medical centers through this data collaborative.”
Created in conjunction with the Baton Rouge Health District, the new network of data warehouses will be called the Baton Rouge Health District Research Data Collaborative. It will provide secure and anonymous linkage of data from multiple sources, to enable novel research and population health insights. It will include new data resources at four Health District institutions including Our Lady of the Lake Health, Woman’s Hospital, Baton Rouge General, and Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. It will also work actively with Ochsner Health, which has its own clinical data warehouse, already on a compatible framework. Built with a common structure using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, standards, these warehouses will enable Baton Rouge providers and researchers to efficiently assemble data required for large-scale data projects, as well as for projects toward rare conditions.
“This grant to LA CaTS [The Louisiana Clinical & Translational Science Center] will enhance our ability to pursue research requiring large clinical databases,” said Dr. John Kirwan, Executive Director of Pennington Biomedical and Director for LA CaTS. “This Baton Rouge area collaboration will result in Louisiana-based researchers generating new studies to pursue improved health outcomes for our residents.”
“Pennington Biomedical researchers actively collaborate with Baton Rouge area providers. This network of data warehouses is intended to make such collaborations more numerous and enable more projects directed toward specific Baton Rouge health issues. Using such a network to achieve depth of coverage across a large geographic area is innovative,” said Dr. Ronald Horswell, Associate Professor of Research - Population and Public Health at Pennington Biomedical. “Pennington Biomedical investigators have collaborated with researchers from these Baton Rouge-based healthcare partners for years, and this collaborative strengthens our ability to solve even more complex health problems.”
For the Baton Rouge Health District, this new Data Collaborative is a result from data sharing challenge goals set under the Baton Rouge Health District-- Health-Tech Catalyst program. The Health-Tech Catalyst is a regional health and life science innovation cluster initiative led by the Baton Rouge Health District in collaboration with Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, with federal support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
“On behalf of Our Lady of the Lake, we are excited about what this partnership and collaboration can foster,” said Charles Spicer, president of Our Lady of the Lake Health. “We believe that the Data Collaborative will foster research motivated by and directly relevant to the needs of Louisiana itself and the Baton Rouge area. This unique opportunity for collaboration among researchers is a tremendous win for patients in South Louisiana.”
“At Woman’s Hospital, we are proud of the exceptional care we deliver to the women of Baton Rouge, and we are proud to be among America’s best maternity hospitals,” Rene Ragas, president and CEO of Woman’s Hospital. “We cannot fulfill these goals without taking an innovative approach to women’s health, and so I’m proud that Woman’s Hospital is a partner in the new data collaborative. We are committed to growing this important collaboration among the leading health providers in South Louisiana.”
“As one of the first projects linking data between healthcare providers and the Louisiana Tumor Registry, I am thrilled to think of the possibilities that this collaboration can generate, especially in the potential development of cancer treatments,” Jonas Fontenot, president and CEO of Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. “On behalf of the entire Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center team, we are proud to play a key role in bringing this innovative technology to Baton Rouge.”
“Since its inception, I’ve thought of the health district not as just a geographical location, but as a data sharing structure that I believe can improve healthcare in our community,” said Edgardo Tenreiro, president and CEO of Baton Rouge General. “This collaborative is the first substantiative step towards that infrastructure and I’m immensely proud of the work that’s got us to this point and of the work we’ll do together in the future.”
“Creation of the Baton Rouge Health District Data Collaborative is made possible through the work of several key, local healthcare providers,” said Eric McMillen, CEO of Ochsner Medical Center – Baton Rouge. “With our extensive database, Ochsner has experience providing information for collaborative research, and we are proud contributors to a project of this scale. This data collaborative aligns with the mission of Ochsner and all collaborators to provide the best in health solutions for our patients.”
For more information, please see a related announcement by Pennington Biomedical at https://www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2023/lacatsgrant.aspx