In the battle against COVID-19, big data has been critical to nearly every aspect of the global response: from tracking the spread of the virus and understanding the course of the disease to coordinating supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators in hospitals.
To help strengthen the power of big data in the response, a broad cross section of private-industry organizations have joined forces to speed up access to real-time health data and open-source tools to help improve decision making. The COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition includes leaders from healthcare, tech, major medical centers, and academic institutions working together to share data in the fight against the pandemic. “The real power in this coalition is the cross section of institutions that are choosing to participate and the ability to scale our efforts,” says Sandeep Burugupalli, Senior Director, Global Medical Epidemiology, Data Center of Excellence at Pfizer. “The faster we can get to data and the timelier it is, the better our response is going to be,” he adds. Pfizer is one of the early pharma companies to join the coalition, hoping to apply real-world data to improve their decision making in the development of therapies and vaccines to fight COVID-19.
