In April 2019, HYDRO, Implicity’s project, was one of the ten winners of the first call for projects of the Health Data Club (HDH) and obtained in May 2020 the authorization of the CNIL to be implemented. It is therefore the first project to access the Health Data Club’s large database as well as that of the National Health Data System (SNDS) of the French National Health Insurance, a total of 5 terabytes of data. Thanks to a machine learning system, HYDRO aims to predict acute heart failure attacks in patients with implants and thus avoid very costly hospitalizations.

Each year, more than 160,000 hospitalizations are due to heart failure in France. This pathology is the first cause of hospitalization of people over 65 years old, more than 1 million people suffer from it and the treatment is very expensive, more than 1.6 billion per year.

Reducing hospitalizations and associated costs: the two objectives of the HYDRO pilot project

In 2020, Dr. Arnaud Rosier, rhythmologist and CEO of Implicity stated:

“Our project is to develop an original algorithm, otherwise a “software” medical device, using combinations of artificial intelligence methods operating from data transmitted by rhythmic prostheses and accessible clinical data, thanks to the Health Data Hub platform”

The Health Data Hub’s secure project space hosts a probabilistic coupling between the cardiac implant data of more than 35,000 French patients in routine care, collected by Implicity and those of the National Health Data System (reimbursed procedures, hospitalizations, etc.).

David Perlmutter, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Implicity, confirms the crucial role of the HDH in the development of the pilot project:

“Access to our project space in the Health Data Hub is an essential step for Implicity. After more than a year of preparatory work, our team of data scientists now has access to more than 5 TB of healthcare data in an infrastructure dedicated to the development of its AI algorithms. This is a first for the Health Data Hub. We are proud to carry this ambitious project and to participate in the construction of this crucial facility for the sustainability of research actions in France.”

Focus on the data journey

After a positive opinion from CESREES and authorization from the CNIL, the French Health Insurance collected the SNDS data needed for the project, matched it with Implicity’s data and made it available to the HDH. The matching rate is over 77%. Data from more than 1,000 SNDS tables have been extracted and can be analyzed. The HDH is supported continuously throughout the project. In addition to providing the technology platform, Implicity can also rely on the experience of the entity in terms of regulatory support, data science expertise, etc.

Regarding the data used, Implicity stated that the HYDRO project could not have been launched if patients with implants had not agreed to share their data. The data will be deleted at the end of this pilot project.

Translated from Focus sur HYDRO porté par Implicity, premier projet pilote autorisé par la CNIL et accédant au Health Data Hub