Baptist Health joins national network that combines data to help patients get the best cancer care

Baptist Health has joined a national network that facilitates the sharing of health information with other hospitals in its network to improve and personalize cancer treatments, all while keeping its patient close to home, according to a Guardian Research Network news release.

With the addition of four new healthcare systems, including Baptist Health, GRN will now encompass 76 hospitals in nine states. By 2020, it expects to include one million patients with full clinical, imaging, laboratory and significant molecular profiles.

“Baptist Health is excited about the opportunity to be a member of the Guardian Research Network," Timothy Jahn, chief clinical officer of Baptist Health, said in the release. "Participation in GRN offers Baptist cancer patients a personalized approach to the care and treatment of their disease in their own communities,”

GRN collects data from "hundreds of thousands of patients'" electronic medical records and stores it so that they can evaluate and analyze it, which results in "bringing cutting-edge therapies specifically targeted to each patient's cancer" says the release.

Following strict HIPAA privacy regulations, GRN uses this data to identify patients who are eligible for clinical trials.

"This rapid patient-to-trial identification process will significantly reduce the time it takes to enroll a patient in the most advanced clinical trials available," says the release.