The piece you’re about to read is from Klick Health’s Life (Sciences) After COVID-19 series, a collection of expert perspectives designed to inform and inspire the life sciences community for the coming changes and opportunities we anticipate as a result of this global health crisis.
The Insight
The urgency of a worldwide pandemic and the fluidity of modern communications platforms have led clinicians to new, crowdsourced research models that deliver radical increases in speed to care.
After the pandemic, how can we leverage the current change in mindsets toward these new research models and leverage the resultant behaviors?
Can physicians make evidence-based decisions in real time and still do no harm or do we need traditional long-term analysis in every case?
Can real-time tools accelerate and amplify the current clinical guideline development process?
Can we accelerate and assist central committees for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals in an expedited way?
Can we collect real-time contextual and demographic-specific inputs to inform all of our medical and marketing activities to have a greater impact on patient outcomes?
Real-time collaboration has been made possible today through cloud computing. Now anyone can view, comment, and edit shared files, which function most like wiki pages with real-time collaboration for doctors.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this pandemic, it’s that science does not wait for anyone.
Given the urgency of containment and timely intervention measures for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many providers are not letting good enough stand in the way of perfect. They are teaching and learning from each other in real time, and making critical clinical decisions based on credentialed and verified peer recommendations. This new decision-making approach has put into question the requirement for universal consensus on triage protocol and treatment guidelines that can delay the right action in a moment of need.
And with the advent and ubiquity of real-time communication and collaboration tools like Slack, WhatsApp, Reddit, and Zoom, many providers are collaborating around the world, learning from each other in real time, and developing contextual and demographic-specific treatment guidelines and protocols based on peer-to-peer learnings from the unfolding pandemic.
The Evidence
During this time, real-time peer review is still happening in droves. It’s happening in private backdoor conversations encrypted on Slack, WhatsApp, and the like. Doctors from China and Italy are sharing rapid investigator studies and commentary on prevention protocols, treatment guidelines, and even therapeutic interventions that can then be applied to local cases here in North America. It’s a glimpse of what to expect and what we can leverage in the future.
Real-time collaboration has been made possible today through cloud computing. Now anyone can view, comment, and edit shared files, which function most like wiki pages with real-time collaboration for doctors. Peers are now able to support, reject, question, challenge, or confirm peer recommendations.
They are invited by referral to help ensure medical credibility and to validate expertise. Each peer is incentivized to then offer their expertise for the greater good of the community. Once a consensus is rapidly achieved, such guidelines are then “spun out” and shared with the medical community at large.
I’ve seen real-time protocols developed and released by health professionals on the front lines at Stanford, Brigham Women’s Hospital, and several others. I’ve seen physicians challenge the use of unproven, media-hyped drug combinations such as hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. I’ve seen sub-protocols being developed for specific use cases, such as for patients who are immunocompromised, for patients who experience a cytokine storm, or for a better understanding of the trajectory of multi-organ involvement as the disease takes its course. I’ve even seen the sharing of how-to-hack protocols for converting single patient ventilators into dual-use devices, and instructions on how to 3D-print personal protective equipment and respiratory devices.
Patient Care, at the Speed (and Scale) of Science
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Author
Gautam Gulati, MD
Medical Director
Gautam (Dr. G) Gulati is a polymath doctor who speaks, writes, teaches, advises, invests, and builds cool things. As an innovation-focused executive for the past 20+ years, Dr. G has studied, interviewed, worked for, and advised forward-thinking leaders from the world’s most recognized companies. Dr. G is currently an Innovator-in-Residence at Klick Health where he helps leaders of life sciences companies to see around corners and better understand how to innovate during uncertain times.
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