"Mortality should be a central endpoint in most health analytics – extending patient survival is, after all, the goal of diagnostic and treatment protocols. Thus, measuring survival (through mortality metrics) should be part of any analysis of treatment efficacy, safety, public health policy, and protocol design." - Jason LaBonte, CEO at Veritas Data Research. Mortality data is a vital component of healthcare decision-making, providing invaluable insights for the industry. However, despite its significance, many healthcare organizations face numerous challenges and misconceptions that hinder the effective utilization of this critical resource. One major obstacle is the lack of comprehensive mortality data capture in clinical datasets commonly used for real-world data analytics, such as insurance claims or electronic health records, particularly when patients pass away outside of healthcare facilities. In fact, analysis conducted by Veritas Data Research shows that just 20% of U.S. deaths are recorded in medical claims. Data quality discrepancies, challenges around standardization and consolidation, and privacy concerns further compound the difficulties faced by organizations that try to aggregate the numerous sources of mortality data themselves. Despite these challenges, mortality data has the potential to drive significant improvements in healthcare across various sectors:<ul><li>Pharmaceutical companies can utilize mortality data to assess the efficacy and safety of their drugs, enabling them to make data-driven decisions in clinical trials and post-market surveillance, ultimately leading to the development of safer and more effective treatments.</li><li>Healthcare providers and payers can leverage mortality data to identify high-risk patient populations, develop targeted interventions, and optimize resource allocation, resulting in improved patient outcomes and reduced healthcare costs.</li><li>Analytics companies can harness the power of mortality data to develop advanced predictive models and risk stratification tools, empowering healthcare organizations to proactively identify and address potential trends, thereby enhancing population health management efforts.</li></ul>Veritas, an innovator in developing industry-leading mortality and reference data solutions, indexes mortality data from a staggering 40,000 sources across the United States, ranging from online obituaries and funeral home notices to military and veterans cemetery listings and the Social Security Administration's Limited Access Death Master File. The sheer volume and diversity of these sources present a significant challenge to data collection, processing, and collation, requiring Veritas to employ sophisticated automation and data curation techniques to transform the raw, unstructured data into a standardized, high quality analytics-ready dataset. Another hurdle is the successful integration of mortality data with existing healthcare analytics workflows, which demands careful planning, clear data governance policies, and the use of modern data sharing tools. Finally, while there are many real-world examples of successful mortality data integration, a common struggle faced by new users is the lack of access to specialized expertise to help them through the process. Veritas takes pride in its ability to help healthcare organizations overcome these challenges, empowering them to effectively leverage mortality data and drive meaningful improvements in patient care. With this in mind, Veritas has recently released its Verify solution, allowing customers to quickly know which individuals within their own data are deceased without needing to ingest Veritas's full historical mortality data file or build an internal identity resolution (matching) process to determine the status of individuals of interest. While publicly available mortality datasets are generally considered "safe" from a privacy perspective, potential re-identification risks may arise on combination with other de-identified health datasets. For instance, in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled "Reidentification of Individuals in Chicago's Homicide Database: A Technical and Legal Study" (Ochoa et al., 2002)[1], researchers demonstrated that individuals could be re-identified by linking publicly available homicide records with other datasets containing demographic information. By combining this data with other publicly available datasets, such as voter registration records or property tax databases, the researchers were able to match the records and identify specific individuals in some cases. This study highlights the inherent risk of re-identification when multiple datasets containing overlapping or complementary information are combined, even if each dataset alone does not directly identify individuals. To mitigate these risks when working with sensitive health data, healthcare organizations can implement strict data governance policies, including guidelines for data aggregation, de-identification, and access control. Developing a robust data governance framework and partnering with experts in data privacy is crucial for ensuring the integrity and responsible use of mortality data while maximizing data utility. For this reason, Veritas Data Research works with groups like Integral, who provide the expertise and the technology required to use mortality data in compliant and privacy-centric analytics. One of the most significant challenges in prioritizing data security and privacy is achieving compliance with relevant regulations, which can be a complex and time-consuming process. As the demand for privacy-sensitive data continues to grow, particularly in areas like healthcare and mortality research, innovations in this space will be essential for enabling impactful analyses while maintaining confidence in data security and compliance. "We've heard from many organizations that the process of working with privacy-sensitive data governed by regulations is often slow, opaque, and uncertain. Organizations want to use real data instead of synthetic data, but the compliance process acts as a major blocker to progress. By leveraging automation, we've developed a pre-purchase evaluation tool that enables users to quickly assess the privacy risks and compliance requirements of a dataset before purchase or use."- Shubh Sinha, Chief Executive Officer at Integral. Integral's expert-in-the-middle approach and automation enable companies to quickly understand privacy risks and compliance requirements, streamlining the process of working with sensitive healthcare data. In conclusion, healthcare organizations seeking to harness the power of mortality data must navigate a complex landscape of data quality, integration, privacy, and security challenges. By partnering with innovative companies like Integral, which offers best-in-class privacy solutions, and Veritas, which provides the most complete and accurate mortality data, organizations can quickly overcome these obstacles and unlock the full potential of this untapped data resource.<h2>About Veritas Data Research</h2><h3>Veritas makes critical information accessible. Founded by experts in the data and analytics industry, Veritas uses cutting-edge technology and efficient workflow design to collect, curate, and distribute foundational reference datasets. To learn more about Veritas, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://veritasdataresearch.com/">https://veritasdataresearch.com/</a> </h3><h2>About Integral</h2><h3>Integral enables companies to safely leverage sensitive healthcare data at unprecedented speeds by automating the data de-identification and compliance certification process, allowing our customers to stay agile and iteratively drive outcomes. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://www.useintegral.com">www.useintegral.com</a> [1]: Ochoa, S., Rasmussen, J., Robson, C., &amp; Salib, M. (2002). Reidentification of Individuals in Chicago's Homicide Database: A Technical and Legal Study. ResearchGate. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2838440_Reidentification_of_Individuals_in_Chicago's_Homicide_Database_A_Technical_and_Legal_Study">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2838440_Reidentification_of_Individuals_in_Chicago's_Homicide_Database_A_Technical_and_Legal_Study</a></h3>

Navigating the Challenges of Utilizing Mortality Data

Test new post

Happy Friday to the Integral community,It’s been a few weeks since the official launch of Integral’s Privacy Workbench. We’ve seen a tremendous rate of adoption of the platform since its inception and are working furiously behind the scenes to improve and scale the platform quickly.We are establishing this blog as a forum for our team to walk through the platform and keep you updated on things we are working on. <h2>This blog will generally take shape in 3 forms:</h2><ol><li>Bi-weekly product updates</li><li>Product development deep dives</li><li>Product-driven market commentary</li></ol>As the inaugural edition of this series, this post will serve as a digital walkthrough of the Privacy Workbench platform.<h2>What is the Privacy Workbench? </h2>Privacy Workbench is a radical departure from the existing set of solutions in the data privacy space.Instead of weeks of manual review, Privacy Workbench introduces a transparent, milestone-based approach to the expert determination process.Our platform breaks down the process of producing an expert report into 4 distinct milestones that are easily tracked and filled with sub-tasks. As a result of this approach, we’re able to produce expert reports at incredible speed and maintain high fidelity in datasets we certify. Let’s take a closer look at navigating Privacy Workbench.&nbsp;👉 Using our Platform 👈 Our platform has 5 different navigation options:<img src="https://imgix.cosmicjs.com/88477840-c607-11ee-8294-5bdacc8e0a52-Static-Overview-of-Menu-1.png" alt="Privacy Workbench Platform">🔍 Inside the Overview TabThe milestone view enables users to monitor progress in real-time and identify pending tasks. This fosters a solid framework for accountability amongst all parties. Within each milestone, a detailed list of associated subtasks offers clear guidance on pending actions and steps to completion.<img src="https://imgix.cosmicjs.com/c6b845a0-c607-11ee-8294-5bdacc8e0a52-Static-Overview-of-Menu-2.png" alt="Introducing Privacy Workbench Platform">Each milestone has a subpage with different tasks associated with it. Each task is configurable with assignee, due date, and status. Below is an example of the Security and Legal subpage:<img src="https://imgix.cosmicjs.com/f669e5b0-c607-11ee-8294-5bdacc8e0a52-Static-Overview-of-Menu-3.png" alt="Security and Legal">📅 Our next edition will walk through the Analytics tab of our platform which visualizes the results from our Privacy Risk Engine and gives insights into privacy-concerning columns and user data.

Introducing Privacy Workbench Platform

Integral, an innovator in safeguarding privacy and maximizing data quality, is proud to announce that it has been named a finalist in the Data Management - Governance category for the prestigious InfoWorld 2023 Technology of the Year Awards.

InfoWorld's Technology of the Year Awards recognizes companies that have demonstratedexceptional innovation, leadership, and impact in the technology industry. Integral's inclusion as a finalist in the Data Management - Governance category underscores its commitment toadvancing the field through state-of-the-art solutions.

Integral’s best-in-class privacy-enhancing platform enables healthcare businesses to work with highly sensitive and regulated data while staying compliant with regulatory requirements. Their newly launched Privacy Workbench introduces a defining level of transparency for evaluating risks embedded within data, while making it more straightforward and faster than ever for companies dealing with sensitive data to optimize datasets for both compliance and fidelity.

"We are deeply honored to be recognized as a finalist in the Data Management - Governance category by InfoWorld," said Shubh Sinha, CEO and Founder at Integral. "This acknowledgment is a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation in the realm of data privacy and management. We extend our gratitude to InfoWorld for this prestigious recognition."

The company's dedication to maintaining the highest standards in data governance aligns with the evolving needs of businesses in an increasingly data-centric world. The InfoWorldTechnology of the Year Awards winners will be announced in mid-November.

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About Integral

Founded in 2022, Integral revolutionizes how companies de-identify sensitive health data and ensure HIPAA compliance. With Integral’s Certifications-as-a-Service, companies caneffortlessly accelerate and audit data processing, collaborate securely, and unlock new insights quickly and seamlessly. For more information or to get in touch with Integral, visituseintegral.com.

Integral Recognized as a Finalist in InfoWorld's 2023 Technology of the Year Awards for Data Management - Governance

We are thrilled to announce a significant milestone for Integral - the release of our first open-source project: Robin AI. This exciting development tool embodies our commitment to fostering technological innovation and the collaborative spirit intrinsic to the open-source community. 
 
Named after Batman's dependable sidekick, Robin AI represents the invaluable support and assistance that this tool offers to engineering teams, just like Robin does for the Dark Knight. Integral originally developed Robin AI as an internal solution to enhance the performance and resilience of our code. Since its inception, Robin has significantly increased our product development speed and considerably minimized the occurrence of production bugs, thereby enabling us to deliver top-tier software solutions with greater efficiency.
 
Witnessing Robin's impactful contribution to our development process, we couldn't help but wonder - what if we could extend these benefits to other engineering teams and projects? To turn this idea into reality, we decided to package Robin AI as an open-source project, thereby equipping engineering teams with the ability to automate their own code review processes.
 
One of the most striking features of Robin AI is its eerily human-like feedback. Robin will review your code changes and provide constructive feedback to help improve your code. It shines particularly brightly when used with JavaScript repositories, but by design is able to be integrated into any coding environment.
 
Robin AI leverages the power of GPT to understand and analyze your team's code changes. Packaged as a Github action, it is incredibly straightforward to set up and use, allowing you to start benefiting from its features right away.
 
We are humbled and excited by the early adoption and feedback we've received for Robin AI. Already, it has gained 14 stars on Github, and it is being used in three public projects and numerous private repositories. Users have praised its utility and the quality of its insights, a testament to the potential of Robin AI.
 
We invite you and your engineering team to experience the benefits of Robin AI. Try it out on one of your repositories, and we guarantee that you'll appreciate the enhancement it brings to your development process. We also encourage you to share your feedback with us, as it helps us to continuously refine Robin and make it even more beneficial for its users.
 
We hope you will consider supporting the project by giving it a star on Github. Your endorsement not only recognizes the efforts of the team behind Robin AI but also helps spread the word in the open-source community.
 
<center><a href="https://github.com/Integral-Healthcare/robin-ai-reviewer">Visit the project here</a></center>
 
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