The COVID-19 Clinical Database was envisioned, keeping in mind the need for open-source disease databases that would lead to better disease understanding and enable disease management and treatment. This first-of-its-kind database, enabled and hosted by PKC, will allow researchers and analysts to understand and recognize disease parameters at a micro level during the patient’s stay in the hospital, which would lead to better knowledge of disease patterns and progression. Insights from the database will forge paths towards a better understanding of disease progression and outcomes. The database has been envisioned and built by PKC along with its various partners.

Leveraging the Cluster Model for Database Creation

PKC enabled several initiatives during the pandemic through collaborations with over 15 institutions in Pune. The lack of access to organized disease data was a significant bottleneck in making informed clinical decisions and furthering research. To address this, PKC built partnerships with research institutes, hospitals and the deep-tech companies of Pune to build this database to address the current disease data gap. This project was initiated in 2021 with a government hospital in the Pune city. IPD files of COVID-19-positive were scanned by 12 interns hired and managed by PKC. Scanned images of IPD files of 10,000+ patients from one government, one private and one teaching private hospital were collated and collected by PKC. The data were transcribed directly into the database by EPIC Health Information Management LLP, and the corresponding lab investigations were converted from PDF format to a tabular format by AIQoD (formerly GI Bots), a cognitive data extraction, management and analytics platform. Adequate checks at multiple levels have ensured that the originality of the data is represented in the database. Systems were implemented by PKC/EPIC-HIM and AIQoD to ensure the data were transcribed/converted correctly without error. Both transcribed IPD file data and lab investigations are integrated into the COVID-19 Clinical Database.

Key Highlights

Hosts anonymised retrospective COVID-19 disease data of 2000 patients across Pune, capturing over 100 different clinical parameters.

• Allows for viewing and downloading of data
• Selection of cases possible based on various filters
• Lab investigations for each hospitalised patient have been integrated for the corresponding clinical data
• Clinical parameters captured over the entire hospital stay of the patient

Parameters Captured in the Database

• Demography (Age, Weight, Height, Gender, Vaccine status)
• Hospital Admission and Discharge Details (COVID-19-positive status, Testing details, Date of Admission/Discharge/Death, Number of days stay)
• Patient Health Information (Comorbid conditions, Pregnancy status, Symptoms of admission and past history)
• Vitals (General Condition, Body temperature, Heart Rate, Respiratory Rate, CNS, Blood Sugar Level, Pulse Rate, Blood Pressure) – These are captured from 1 to 3 time points in the day, based on the general condition of the patient.
• Supplemental Oxygen (Saturation in %, Supplemental Oxygen delivered)
• Symptoms (Fever, Headache, Cough/LRTI, Weakness, Body ache, Difficulty in breathing, Nausea/Vomiting, Diarrhoea, Loss of Taste and Smell, Pneumonia, Breathlessness, Other Symptoms)
• Medication during hospitalisation (Drug Commercial Name, Drug Generic name, Dose per Day, Route of Administration, Number of days of drug administration)
• ICU care (Number of days of ICU care)
• ECG (Interpretation)
• Lab investigations

Link to the database

Technology Partners:

• EPIC-Health Information Management
• AIQoD (formerly GI Bots)

Hospital Partners:

• BJ Government Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, Pune
• Noble Hospitals and Research Centre, Pune
• Symbiosis University Hospital and Research Centre, Pune

Interns who contributed to the project:

• Mr. Nyutan Wankar (MCA)
• Mr. Tushar Patil (B.E Computer Science)
• Ms. Tara Rathod (MBA Healthcare)
• Ms. Niharika Gogate (M.Sc Health Sciences)
• Ms. Swati Dugga (M.Sc Health Sciences)
• Ms. Pradnya Sarwade (Master of Public Health)
• Ms. Manisha Munde (MBA Marketing)
• Ms. Jasmeen Shaikh (M.Sc Health Sciences)
• Mr. Kishor Dhekane (M.Sc Biotechnology)
• Ms. Sanskruti Ganatra (M.Sc Biochemistry)
• Mr. Tanaji Bombatkar (M.Sc Economics)
• Mr. Omkar Kulkarni (M.Sc Economics)