Dutch ICUs start collaborating by sharing large amounts of routinely collected data to improve the quality of care and treatment strategies for future critically ill patients. The ICU data initiative icudata.nl, led by intensivists Paul Elbers and Patrick Thoral, is supported by Zorgverzekeraars Nederland with 2 million euros for the next five years.

The Dutch Society for Intensive Care (NVIC) had initiated a large scale collaboration by Dutch ICUs to engage in large scale data sharing on critically ill patients to improved quality of care and patient outcomes. Together, they intend to find out which timing of which combination of treatment strategies will lead to the best outcomes in which patient.

Large amounts of data are routinely collected during ICU treatment, such as those from devices for monitoring and life support. Artificial intelligence techniques including machine learning could be leveraged to identify which combination of treatment strategies will lead to the best outcomes.

The collaboration emerged during the corona crisis, as sharing and analyzing data proved to yield important insights. Clearly, this should continue to save the lives of future critically ill patients!

This unique collaboration is coordinated by the Laboratory for Critical Care Computational Intelligence at Amsterdam UMC. There are strong ties with the NICE foundation, known for their experience with analyzing data for ICU benchmarking. Machine learning partner Pacmed will use their expertise to combine and analyze the data. Zorgverzekeraars Nederland, uniting all major health insurance companies will support the intiative with 2 million euros for the next five years.

Read here the news item 'Nederlandse intensive cares gaan data delen met steun van zorgverzekeraars' on the website of Zorgverzekeraars Nederland (in Dutch).