“Understanding what puts Veterans at an increased risk for chronic diseases and illnesses is critical to protecting and treating the more than 22 million US Veterans alive today. To better understand the factors that impact Veteran health, the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) is using artificial data – also known as synthetic data – to measure a broad array of health risks that will improve Veteran care.”
“Many VHA initiatives are using synthetic data with promising results. Recently, VHA IE partnered with MDClone to generate synthetic data sets for use across VHA. Synthetic data is being used to improve patient care pathways in suicide prevention and chronic disease management, and to track trends in population health.”
“VHA IE’s partnership with PrecisionFDA used synthetic data to launch an AI challenge to create predictive models for COVID-19 in Veteran populations. For Veterans, this results in improved patient care and clinical outcomes, while ensuring the security of their personal health information.”What is synthetic data?
“Synthetic data is not linked to real people, events, or circumstances. Instead, it is generated via computer programs that mirror real-world information by observing attributes of real data. Synthetic data sets can be reliable and accurate when they are based on trends and traits of real data.”
“Synthetic health data has all the characteristics of health records – such as information about blood pressure, diabetes, weight and illnesses – without personally identifiable information, like names, social security numbers and contact information. Synthetic data is different from de-identified data, which simply hides attached identities but still uses real Veteran information. It has been shown that de-identification is time consuming, difficult, and may still carry the risk of re-identification with modern computing techniques. With synthetic data, there are no identities to hide…” Read the full article here.
Source: How synthetic data will improve Veteran health and care – By Amanda Purnell, December 7, 2020. VAntage Point.
