Healthcare now generates mountains of data about each patient, and user-generated information from wearable Health Tech devices will only build those mountains even higher. Three important organizations announced this week that they are partnering to create the new Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance. The three groups involved in the project are Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
The alliance will develop ways to apply Big Data management and analytics to healthcare information, creating new products and services to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. Combining the health sciences research expertise of Pitt with the computer science knowledge of CMU and the clinical care experience of UPMC, the group has a unique combination of skills and assets to bring to bear on this problem.
The program has commitments for six years of funding from UPMC, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants already awarded to the three institutions. The goal will include spinning off for-profit companies to commercialize some of the innovations produced by the alliance.
