The life sciences industry is at a turning point. Ninety-seven percent of data generated by the healthcare sector goes unused. Despite the billions of dollars invested annually in generating, acquiring, and analyzing data—from clinical trials and real-world evidence to patient-generated data—many organizations remain constrained by one persistent challenge: data silos.
Data silos fragment the patient journey, preventing organizations from fully unlocking the value of their data and making informed, connected decisions.
Data silos in the life sciences industry stem from various factors, including fragmented data collection systems, proprietary data formats, and regulatory constraints. Many pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations collect vast amounts of data, but these datasets remain isolated due to differences in data structures, governance policies, and a lack of interoperability.
For example, a life sciences organization may collect multiple datasets that exist in stand alone silos, including:
By adopting a secure framework for integrating disparate healthcare datasets while preserving patient privacy—known as a Linkable Data Infrastructure (LDI)—life sciences organizations can break down data silos and gain a more complete view of the healthcare landscape.
LDIs incorporate a privacy-preserving method to bring together proprietary, real-world, consumer ID, and other patient-level data.
Utilizing advanced linkage technology and privacy-enhancing solutions, LDIs provide life sciences companies with the capability to connect and analyze data across sources in a privacy-preserving manner, unlocking richer insights and driving more effective decision-making.
An LDI serves as the foundation for a more interconnected and insightful data ecosystem. Through the use of tokenization, which replaces personally identifiable information with unique, irreversible tokens, LDIs enable the secure linkage of datasets such as electronic health records (EHR), claims data, lab results, and specialty pharmacy data. This approach prioritizes patient privacy while facilitating a unified, patient-centric view of health data.
By deploying an LDI, life sciences organizations can overcome data silos and unlock valuable capabilities, including:
Prioritizing patient privacy while linking healthcare datasets requires a combination of secure data-handling techniques and robust privacy solutions. Two key components that enable privacy-centric data linkage are tokenization and privacy certification:
By combining tokenization and privacy certification, life sciences organizations can confidently link health data without compromising patient privacy. This approach enables a privacy-centric exchange of de-identified patient records, supporting more effective research, real-world evidence generation, and targeted healthcare interventions.
The return on investment for organizations adopting an LDI extends across the therapeutic lifecycle, from early-stage research to post-market surveillance. Based on our actual use cases with top 20 life sciences organizations and industry projections, the power of connected data can drive:
*ROI figures based on actual use cases seen in Datavant book of business with 18 of Top 20 Pharma and industry projections.
Data linkage has revolutionized operations for many life sciences organizations we work with. Below are examples of Datavant life sciences customers, showcasing the impact:
Establishing an LDI is less about constructing something entirely new and more about strategically uniting existing resources and expertise. In our work with top pharmaceutical companies, the most successful approach prioritizes integration and efficiency over reinvention.
To establish an effective LDI, organizations must prioritize:
As the healthcare industry accounts for nearly 30 percent of the world’s total data volume, the demand for connected, actionable data is growing.
Organizations that embrace an LDI will not only streamline their data management strategies, but also gain a competitive advantage by delivering greater value for stakeholders — and better outcomes for patients.
A partnership with an industry expert like Datavant to design and scale LDIs ensures organizations maximize efficiency, proactively mitigate risks, and achieve sustainable differentiation.
AnalyticsIQ, a marketing data and analytics company, recently adopted Datavant’s state de-identification process to enhance the privacy of its SDOH datasets. By undergoing this privacy analysis prior to linking its data with other datasets, AnalyticsIQ has taken an extra step that could contribute to a more efficient Expert Determination (which is required when its data is linked with others in Datavant’s ecosystem).
AnalyticsIQ’s decision to adopt state de-identification standards underscores the importance of privacy in the data ecosystem. By addressing privacy challenges head-on, AnalyticsIQ and similar partners are poised to lead clinical research forward, providing datasets that are not only compliant with privacy requirements, but also ready for seamless integration into larger datasets.
"Stakeholders across the industry are seeking swift, secure access to high-quality, privacy-compliant SDOH data to drive efficiencies and improve patient outcomes,” says Christine Lee, head of health strategy and partnerships at AnalyticsIQ.
“By collaborating with Datavant to proactively perform state de-identification and Expert Determination on our consumer dataset, we help minimize potentially time-consuming steps upfront and enable partners to leverage actionable insights when they need them most. This approach underscores our commitment to supporting healthcare innovation while upholding the highest standards of privacy and compliance."
As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, Datavant’s state de-identification product offers an innovative tool for privacy officers and data custodians alike. By addressing both state-specific and HIPAA requirements, companies can stay ahead of regulatory demands and build trust across data partners and end-users. For life sciences organizations, this can lead to faster, more reliable access to the datasets they need to drive research and innovation while supporting high privacy standards.
As life sciences companies increasingly rely on SDOH data to drive insights, the need for privacy-preserving solutions grows. Data ecosystems like Datavant’s, which link real-world datasets while safeguarding privacy, are critical to driving innovation in healthcare. By integrating state de-identified SDOH data, life sciences can gain a more comprehensive view of patient populations, uncover social factors that impact health outcomes, and ultimately guide clinical research that improves health.
Both payers and providers are increasingly utilizing SDOH data to enhance care delivery and improve health equity. By incorporating SDOH data into their strategies, both groups aim to deliver more personalized care, address disparities, and better understand the social factors affecting patient outcomes.
Payers increasingly leverage SDOH data to meet health equity requirements and enhance care delivery:
Payers’ consideration of SDOH underscores their commitment to improving health equity, delivering targeted care, and addressing disparities for vulnerable populations.
Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP) incorporated SDOH, partnering with Papa, to combat loneliness and isolation in older adults, families, and other vulnerable populations. CDPHP aimed to address:
By integrating SDOH data, CDPHP enhanced their services to deliver comprehensive care for its Medicare Advantage members.
Value-based care organizations face challenges in fully understanding their patient panels. SDOH data significantly assists providers to address these challenges and improve patient care. Here are some examples of how:
By leveraging SDOH data, providers gain a more comprehensive understanding of their patient population, leading to more targeted and personalized care interventions.
While accessing SDOH data offers significant advantages, challenges can arise from:
To overcome these challenges, providers must have robust data integration strategies, standardization efforts, and access to health data ecosystems to ensure comprehensive and timely access to SDOH data.
With Datavant, healthcare organizations are securely accessing SDOH data, and further enhancing the efficiency of their datasets through state de-identification capabilities - empowering stakeholders across the industry to make data-driven decisions that drive care forward.
Explore how Datavant can be your health data logistics partner.
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