By Godson Umejiego, Senior Correspondent USA
Palantir Technologies Inc. has announced an extension and expansion of its work with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the outbreak response and disease surveillance solution for the Data Collation and Integration for Public Health Event Response (DCIPHER) Programme.
Over a decade ago, Palantir and the CDC initially partnered to support the agency’s efforts to manage foodborne outbreaks and the partnership grew to include countering Ebola and the management of anthrax and bacterial special pathogens. Palantir’s work on the DCIPHER Programme utilizes the Palantir Foundry platform to support the time-sensitive data integration, management, and analysis that widespread events require.
Since its first project in 2010, Palantir and the CDC’s DCIPHER Programme have increased their efforts together to include additional food-borne pathogens, respiratory pathogens, genomics-specific data challenges, as well as facilitating expanded collaboration between the CDC and state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) partners. These initiatives are separate and distinct from Palantir’s COVID-19 response work with US federal health agencies.
“We are honoured to continue and expand our long-standing partnership with CDC in support of public health surveillance and outbreak response,” said Chief Medical Officer for USG at Palantir, Dr. William Kassler. “Beyond COVID, by incorporating innovative genomic workflows into traditional public health surveillance, CDC is building upon its foundational investments in a modernized technology infrastructure.”
Select examples of programmes currently using DCIPHER include the System for Enteric Disease Response, Investigation, the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), and Coordination (SEDRIC) and the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) within the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases.
Leveraging Palantir’s Foundry platform, including reusable data frameworks and workflows, DCIPHER has enabled workgroups across CDC to rapidly integrate data, carry out analysis, and configure operational workflows for public health needs. The result has been highly synchronized surveillance and coordinated operations and response.
Palantir Foundry enables data-driven decision-making by integrating data from siloed data sources and enabling granular access across various organizations. It is used by several federal health agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Food and Drug Administration, and was also used by several military branches to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
