Manage Your Resources: BIG DATA Applications in Transfusion Medicine: Size Matters!

2018 AABB Annual Meeting Session

Program Chair: Aaron Tobian, PhD, MD
Speakers: Nareg Roubinian; Ruchika Goel, M.D., MPH; Gustaf Edgren
Intended Audience: Physician, Perfusionist, Nurse, Medical Director, Manager, Donor Recruiter, Director, Research Scientist, Residents/Fellow, Student (MD, MT, SBB), Supervisor, Technologist, Transfusion Safety Officer
Teaching Level: Intermediate

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize large hospital health systems based ‘Big Data’ applications.
• Identify national level ‘Big Data’ resources and the statistical caution to be exercised in utilizing them.
• Appreciate the international perspective in strategically linking donor health to studying a myriad of recipient outcomes that are otherwise hard to study.

Description: The role of 'Big Data' in medicine can be transformative in building better health profiles with predictive models at both individual patient large population levels. New developments in Pathology Informatics as well as electronic health records (EHR) increasingly support the collection of ‘big laboratory and clinical data’. It is encouraging that some of these innovations are now being applied successfully to transfusion medicine (TM)!

This session aims to highlight some novel and innovative big data applications made by some national and international TM researchers. We seek to introduce the audience to the utility of collaborative efforts in yielding high quality research output while introducing the audience to the statistical caution that needs to be exercised in big data approaches. The eventual goal will be to show examples to apply the knowledge to improve the implementation of best practice in transfusion medicine globally.

Session Chair: Dr. Aaron Tobian, MD PhD

Speaker Panel:

• Large health system based applications: Dr. Nareg Roubinian. MD, MPHTM
  • Dr. Roubinian is an intensive care physician and a clinical investigator with appointments at Blood Systems Research Institute, Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), and the University of California, San Francisco. He will provide examples of a large hospital health system Based Applications for TM research using EHR from KPNC health system. As a Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study (REDS) investigator, he will also provide examples of applications from the premier research program in blood collection and transfusion safety in the United States.

• National Applications: Dr. Ruchika Goel MD MPH
  • Dr. Goel is a transfusion medicine specialist and a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. She will discuss examples of innovative applications of some nationally representative multidimensional databases and registries with millions of data points in producing meaningful research outcomes and expanding the evidence base in Transfusion Medicine. She will provide examples of the power of ‘Big Numbers’ from studying outcomes in some rare diseases to be able to generate nationally representative trends in blood utilization.

• International Perspective: Dr. Gustaf Edgren. MD PhD
  • Dr. Edgren is an associate professor in Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden and the Swedish PI of the Scandinavian Donations and Transfusions (SCANDAT) database, which holds data on blood donations and transfusions in Sweden and Denmark for nearly 50 years. Dr. Edgren will provide examples of linking the donor health to recipient outcomes and successfully providing longitudinal analyses for otherwise extremely hard to study associations.