Panalgo CEO and Founder Joseph Menzin and Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health Director Peter Neumann discuss how real world data (RWD) has improved the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly identifying infected people and testing new therapeutics, among other uses. At the same time, weak points have been identified, including challenges associated with forming conclusions based on electronic health records and inefficient data distribution. The effects of the pandemic and mitigation strategies on people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, education, and industries remains difficult to ascertain. Learning from these challenges and preparing for the next pandemic will ultimately lead to better pandemic responses and improved healthcare outcomes.
The authors note, “A slim silver lining of the current COVID-19 pandemic is that it can help us better prepare for future outbreaks—if we harness what we’ve learned correctly. In particular, we can better leverage one of the most crucial resources we have when it comes to pandemic preparedness: real-world data,” adding, “We need to improve in collecting, sharing and analyzing this real-world data so we can rapidly recognize COVID-19 symptoms, identify effective treatments and more quickly track the spread.” Read more here.
(Source: Joseph Menzin & Peter Neumann, Scientific American, 4/22/21)
