A Central Hub
One central component of CHIP’s work is the Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcome Research Network, or CAPriCORN. Bringing together the health data records of 11 institutions in Chicago, from Veteran Affairs offices to academic medical centers, CAPriCORN acts as a data warehouse that allows the institutions to share data while maintaining patient privacy.
“We developed software that allows us to link people across institutions, and our method is now being used by a national network linking the private identities of 60 to 80 million Americans,” Kho says. “That creates a really powerful tool to bring data together to do all sorts of interesting analysis.”
This data will allow many different doctors and organizations to gain insights into, and develop solutions for, pressing public health and health care issues.
Theresa Walunas
For example, CAPriCORN is being used to predict whether cancer patients given a particular type of treatment, known as checkpoint-inhibitor therapy, will go on to experience autoimmune disease. Led by immunology expert and CHIP associate director Theresa Walunas, researchers are using machine learning to identify cancer patients who received this therapy and were subsequently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and other autoimmune diseases.
By comparing these patients with autoimmune disease patients who have not had cancer, the researchers think they will be able to shed new light on how autoimmune diseases develop and who is at increased risk. Importantly, this work could also lead to improved treatment regimens — and outcomes — for cancer patients.
“We’re in a place now where we can explore autoimmune and other rare diseases,” Walunas says. “We couldn’t do that before, but electronic health data has changed the game.”
Reader Responses
Very interesting collaborative effort. Hope to hear of many insights that improve health outcomes as a result from this effort.
—Jon Castor '73, Woodside, Calif., via Northwestern Magazine
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