The University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS FT is to lead an initiative to improve care for myeloma patients, alongside Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) FT, and the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) FT.
The partnership is part of the NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC), which will enable researchers and clinicians to harness routinely collected myeloma patient data, to learn more about how patients are being managed, helping identify areas for improvement.
The collaboration will also help provide assurance that patient data is protected and used correctly. The UCLH involvement is supported through the NIHR UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.
Project leads will be Consultant Haematologist at UCLH, Dr Rakesh Popat, Dr Sally Moore at OUH, and Dr Matthew Jenner at UHS. The charity Myeloma UK will provide the funding for the initiative.
Dr Popat - who will be one of the principal investigators of the Project - said: “Collaborating with the NIHR HIC provides a unique opportunity to combine clinical expertise in myeloma with the research informatics expertise of the contributing centres to understand and interrogate data collected across the patient experience.
“Although clinical trials are the gold standard for measuring and comparing the suitability of treatment approaches, they do not provide data for all patient groups or allow comparison against other treatment approaches. Being able to safely collect and compare ‘real world’ data will help us to answer the research questions that will benefit all myeloma patients in the UK.”
The project has the potential to not only pave the way for myeloma focused data projects – but to provide learning for any blood cancer data project. This myeloma data collaboration will be the first blood cancer theme within the HIC.
Laura Kerby, Chief Executive at Myeloma UK said: “Working with the experience held by the NIHR HIC, our funding ensures that there is dedicated clinical and informatics expertise to harness the power of routinely collected patient data to push for the best possible treatment and care for all myeloma patients.”
