PORTLAND, Maine (AP) The Maine Medical Center Research Institute is joining an initiative to create a centralized national data platform that scientists can use to study COVID-19 and identify potential treatments.
The institute received a $203,000 grant from West Virginia University for a National Institute of General Medical Sciences initiative.
The National COVID Cohort Collaborative is a partnership of more than 35 institutions. The goal is to use COVID-19 clinical data to answer critical research questions to address the pandemic.
“The N3C platform allows researchers access to vast amounts of data without health care institutions having to share personally identifiable information about their patients,” said Susan Santangelo, from the Maine Medical Center Research Institute. “This collaboration may help us save lives.”
Santangelo used previous funding to create a data warehouse from medical records of MaineHealth patients since the beginning of 2020. The data sets are in line with patient confidential laws, officials said.