Tampa General Strikes Partnership to Build Data Analytics Platform

Tampa General Hospital launched a partnership with software company Palantir Technologies Inc. this week focused on leveraging data and analytics to improve patient care and drive operational, research, and clinical advances.

The press release states that under the partnership, Tampa General Hospital will leverage Palantir’s Foundry platform as the foundation of its own data platform, which will employ artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to augment decision-making.

This collaboration seeks to improve data analytics by integrating Foundry with key hospital data sources to support advanced analytics. Using insights from these analytics, Tampa General aims to improve operations, enhance care, and advance research without compromising patient privacy.

The partnership builds on an existing relationship between the two organizations, under which Tampa General leveraged Foundry to coordinate operations and care during Hurricane Ian. Just before and during the disaster, Tampa General was expected to receive a sudden influx of patients. When the influx hit, the health system used the platform to improve patient flow and address staffing, according to the press release.

The health system expanded the already existing data framework built using Foundry to create a live, interactive view of patients and providers during the hurricane. Using this, Tampa General leadership was able to conduct scenario planning, maximize timely care, and address patient-to-provider allocation, the press release states.

The health system leveraged another data analytics-based workflow to conduct outreach to staff as the crisis unfolded. According to the press release, the two workflows have now been repurposed for post-hurricane use.

"Bringing together our data, analytics, and operations through Foundry not only enables our team members to see the big picture of how our hospital is currently running, but also predict changes we need to account for, allowing us to optimize every decision we make," said Brian Hammond, vice president and chief technology officer at Tampa General, in the press release. "To us, our health care system is a place where people come for personalized care for both themselves and loved ones. Improving the insights we generate from the data we already have available helps us with this mission, and Palantir has already demonstrated the power of our partnership in helping us triage the challenges of Hurricane Ian at a moment's notice."

In the following year, the two organizations state that they plan to continue deploying Foundry to enhance existing operational use cases and expand further to other initiatives to improve connectivity across the hospital, including supporting care pathway management, improving operating room scheduling, enhancing utilization across critical service lines, and driving translational research.

Other healthcare organizations have also worked with Palantir to improve healthcare data analytics.

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unveiled an extension of their 10-year partnership with Palantir to address outbreak response and disease surveillance through the Data Collation and Integration for Public Health Event Response (DCIPHER) Program.

Health agencies using DCIPHER will leverage Foundry under the partnership to integrate data, conduct analysis, and create operational workflows for public health needs.