MITRE on Tuesday announced two new collaborations based around its mCODE data standard. One will bring voice recognition capabilities to the oncology dataset, and another will see it working with the Mayo Clinic to build out and automate that and other data platforms to enable better care for cardiology, COVID-19 and more.

WHY IT MATTERS
Nuance will work to advance MITRE's codeveloped mCODE data standard for improved cancer research, integrating it with its Dragon Medical One speech recognition tool.

mCODE, which stands for Minimal Common Oncology Data Elements, has its roots in a joint initiative to develop a core cancer model and establish foundational data for electronic health records – a set of minimum recommended standards for the structure and content of health record information across use cases and users.

With the Nuance partnership, clinicians will be able to populate mCODE data directly into EHRs using their voice, according to the company – boosting documentation quality and reducing the burden of data entry. The cloud-based Dragon One platform will enable oncologists easier access to data within their own workflows across devices and locations.

MITRE's new collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, meanwhile, is designed to improve public health outcomes. The two organizations will work together on R&D for common data elements for oncology, cardiology, and COVID-19.

The research aims to innovate new and existing platforms for intelligent automation – including mCODE's common data standards and mCARD, a similar initiative for cardiology.

MITRE and Mayo say they'll collaborate to create a new platform – mCOVID – to enable better containment and mitigation of COVID-19, and to make it adaptable for potential future pandemics.

THE LARGER TREND
mCODE was codeveloped by MITRE along with the American Society of Clinical Oncology and its nonprofit subsidiary, CancerLinQ, as a way to find and specify the most specific data elements necessary to enable analytics and decision support for care coordination of cancer patients across different EHR systems.

The goal of the program is to refine the quality of oncology information available to researchers, clinicians, patients and researchers as it's shared across stakeholders: providers, payers, vendors, public health agencies and others.

MITRE and Mayo Clinic cochair the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition, which brings together 1,000 healthcare organizations of all shapes and sizes to drive data-driven insights into the pandemic.

"COVID-19 has forced us to collaborate much faster and advance to many more cloud functions than we probably would have without the pandemic," said Dr. John Halamka, president of Mayo Clinic Platform, recently.

ON THE RECORD
"Collecting clinical data specific to oncology treatment has traditionally been a difficult task to overcome," said Diana Nole, Nuance's general manager of healthcare. "Combining Nuance's AI expertise with the mCODE data standard provides oncologists with the ability to easily collect and gain access to critical outcome data by simply using their voice to securely dictate notes and search within the EHR using Nuance Dragon Medical One. This will garner significant advancements in data collection, which will, in turn, dramatically improve patient treatment and care."

"Every interaction between a clinician and a cancer patient provides high-quality data that could lead to safer care, improved outcomes, and lower costs," said Dr. Jay Schnitzer, MITRE's chief medical and technology officer. "But first, we need data that is standardized and collected in a computable manner so it can be aggregated with data from many other patients and analyzed for best practices. And it must be collected in a streamlined way that doesn't burden the clinicians. The Nuance offering will enhance this effort."

“MITRE and Mayo Clinic’s combined expertise in digital health will develop new ways to address some of healthcare’s most challenging problems,” added Schnitzer.

"Defining common data elements will help transform how we approach cancer and chronic disease, facilitating additional research," said Halamka.