The American University of Beirut (AUB) has become the first institution outside of the United States to be part of the Cosmos network, the largest integrated database of clinical information in the US.
Built on a data platform that answers queries in minutes, Cosmos has an extensive representative sample of patients across all population metrics. Its vital database is collected from laboratories, medications, and patient-generated health data. The Cosmos data set is unlike any other used in health research today. It combines billions of clinical data points in a way that forms a high quality, representative, and integrated data set that can be used to change the health and lives of people everywhere.
This makes Cosmos the ultimate data source for clinicians delivering individualized patient care and for academic researchers in the field of healthcare.
Cosmos has data from over 176 million patient records from over 6.3 billion encounters. It is built on a data platform optimized to answer clinical questions over time in minutes. Clinicians and other scholarly explorers can ask questions on-demand without needing to put a request in for data.
Cosmos will provide AUB researchers, faculty, and students with access to the most up-to-date clinical data and provide physicians with info at their point-of-care. It also reduces the time it takes researchers to access millions of medical data records from months down to minutes.
This is a huge leap, giving physicians and researchers tremendous insights and helping them prescribe better treatment plans tailor-made to the specific cases they are working on.
Dr. Yousif Asfour, chief innovation and transformation officer commented: “This adds another achievement to our institution’s roster and helps keep us at the forefront of innovation. It is the fruit of our AUB’s hard work, credibility, and resilience. I am really excited to see what we are able to do with this data and the findings it will generate. The future of healthcare is right at our fingertips.”
“Being the first medical center outside the United States to be part of the Cosmos network has opened several opportunities for our clinicians and researchers,” said Dr. Raymond Sawaya, Raja N. Khuri Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at AUB. “I am excited about all the possibilities this brings to our community and very proud of our center and our IT team for having succeeded in gaining access to this gold mine of data and information.”
The Cosmos network comprises 176 million patients, 8.8 million cancer patients, 6.3 billion encounters, 22.5 thousand clinics, 1118 hospitals, 215 thousand beds, and 266 thousand physicians.
About AUB
Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut bases its educational philosophy, standards, and practices on the American liberal arts model of higher education. A teaching-centered research university, AUB has more than 800 full-time faculty members and a student body of over 8000 students. AUB currently offers more than 120 programs leading to bachelor’s, master’s, MD, and PhD degrees. It provides medical education and training to students from throughout the region at its Medical Center that includes a full-service 365-bed hospital.