HVH Precision Analytics is a joint venture with Havas Health & You and Vencore specializing in AI and machine learning data analytics. Med Ad News talked to HVH Precision Analytics about the company’s efforts at the forefront of rare disease work.

MedAdNews: Please discuss some of the ways that HVH Precision Analytics is working and making progress in the rare disease space.

HVH’s heritage is in working the rare and ultra-rare disease space to shorten the time to diagnosis and get proper treatments to patients. HVH has worked on more than 100 rare and ultra-rare diseases. HVH utilizes AI and machine learning across varied healthcare and non-healthcare data to understand patients’ experiences prior to diagnosis to inform targeted outreach and education to the right physicians and their patients. Some examples of the types of data HVH analyzes are electronic health records, claims, genomics and Social Determinants of Health like socioeconomic, geospatial, weather and myriad other types of data. HVH has worked on many projects that have resulted in earlier diagnosis and treatment of patients.

MedAdNews: What are some of the ways that AI and big data are being integrated to help in the rare disease space?

HVH is applying AI and machine learning algorithms to varied types of big data such as electronic health records, claims, genomics, and social determinants of health. As an example, HVH applies AI and machine learning algorithms to deidentified patient records of approximately 270 million lives with historical records going back to 2012 to understand the journey of patients through the healthcare system both prior to and following diagnosis. Using these big data assets, we have validated use cases in (1) accelerating diagnosis and getting patients connected to proper treatment in the rare disease space, (2) optimizing across different treatments for a therapeutic area for particular patients, and (3) determining the optimal intervention points in a patient’s journey to achieve the best treatment results.

MedAdNews: How is HVH Precision Analytics raising awareness to better impact rare disease patients’ lives?

HVH participates in many events focused on raising awareness and understanding about the rare and ultra-rare communities. HVH has published extensively about many ultra-rare and rare diseases to inform analytical and clinical understanding of these types of diseases. Recently, HVH was selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health Public-Private Partnership Novel Explorations in Rare Diseases to discover the next group of as yet unknown ultra-rare and rare diseases.

MedAdNews: With the average time it takes for rare disease patients to receive an accurate diagnosis at 4.8 years, what can the industry do to improve upon that figure?

Industry can continue to accelerate its emphasis on shortening the time to diagnosis by using AI and machine learning to better understand and optimize the big data assets that are continuously becoming more available in a way that respects patient privacy but improves patient treatment approaches. Working with patient advocacy groups to better understand and integrate patients’ perspectives and challenges into analysis and targeted educational content will continue to be critically important.