Katie the Intern 12/11/20

Today’s column focuses on the data usage side of healthcare IT and telemedicine, which applies data and research to ongoing studies of both cancer and COVID-19. I’ll focus on the cancer side first and then end with how COVID both impacted and fueled the research of Boston-based Cota Healthcare.

I spoke with Mike Doyle, MBA, who has been president and CEO of Cota for the past two years. Cota uses advanced technology and analytics to provide and advance care and research for many types of cancer. 

“Our mission is bringing clarity to cancer,” Mike said. “Cota was founded on the ability to create objective ways of treating patients and tracking patients based on their outcomes.”

Cota was born from the idea that when cancer patients are seeking treatment, they are looking for answers to two questions: How many people have you treated just like me, and what were their outcomes? The founding doctors and engineers paired up with data scientists to provide a way to answer those questions. Their answer was something called a Cota Nodal Address, or CNA for short.

“What the Dewey Decimal system did for library books, the CNA can do for oncology,” Mike said. “It incorporates all of the relevant pieces of information that the treating physician needs to know about the patient.” 

Relevant information about a patient can include genomic information, disease progression, and other characteristics that would help to eliminate variation in cancer care. Organizations, Mike said, would help providers apply care as their patient’s needs changed over time. The CNA number is a snapshot of where the patient in their care. It adjusts as care is provided based on information from their EHRs.

The CNA number is something that had to be developed over time using trial data from hundreds to millions of cancer patients. Most interestingly, Cota wanted to replace real-world patients who receive placebo drugs in trials with data, thereby almost eliminating the risk that participants in trials might receive an ineffective placebo drug. When Mike was thinking about this process, he was thinking about making trials fair and effective. The 21st Century Cures Act also pushed for this change. 

“If there was a better way to use data to take the place of the placebo group, you’d actually have a much better way of speeding drug trials and greatly reducing potential deaths,” Mike said. “We thought that this was a good place to … work with clinical science companies in clinical trials to speed up drug discovery.”

Cota possesses some of the largest data sets for cancer patients in the United States, and either uses or supplies that data for trials and research. Cota has access to almost 2.5 million records, all data that can be used for quicker research. These large data sets are used by life science companies, Mike said, but they aren’t the only ones interested in the data the Cota has available. 

When COVID-19 began to take over the world, the FDA wanted specific information from Cota. Cota helped study the records of 3,000 records of COVID-19 patients to identify that hydroxychloroquine is not effective for inpatient treatment and may even increase risks in those with comorbidities. The FDA then asked Cota to continue its research on COVID-19 data. 

“We weren’t necessarily in the business of COVID, but rather quickly had to become in the business of COVID,” Mike said. Cota had signed into a partnership with the FDA three years prior, and their research on COVID-19 data prompted a new partnership for another three years to study COVID-19 and cancer.

Mark said the FDA wanted Cota to look at COVID-19 as a comorbidity to cancer. Cota’s ability to adapt to the study proved important to both the pandemic and to the continuation of cancer research. In ways, COVID-19 fueled the company’s already growing data sets.

As far as the future of Cota, Mike said that its research will remain cancer focused, but it will continue to study COVID-19 and cancer together. Data is the driving factor behind the trials and research on cancer. Cota will work with multiple institutions and providers that use its data for different studies, and Mike says they will continue to create partnerships with institutions to further research. 

In regards to HIStalk, Mike has read the website for years. He found HIStalk during his time at a different company, but now reads it twice a week to stay in the know. He has visited HIStalk receptions at HIMSS and now follows posts for the editorial and objective content that they offer. 

“To stay close to providers, I like to read it to stay close to what providers are thinking about,” Mike said. “I read about how we can help providers do a better job on the front lines with patients.” 

That’s the column for this week! I enjoyed learning about data usage in information technology and how a company has used COVID-19 to further its data and research abilities. I’d love to learn more about the application of data in a trial and how data can be used as a placebo in place of a person.

“Adversity creates innovation,” Mike said at the end of our interview. I am inspired to be learning about an industry that continues to help others by creatively innovating and applying tools. 

Have a great one! 

Katie The Intern 

Email me or connect with me on Twitter.