What is N3C?

N3C is an analytics platform that includes the largest repository of COVID-19 clinical data in the world contributed by over 50 health care organizations nationwide, including MaineHealth. In addition to the vast amounts of data available for coronavirus research, N3C features opportunities for team science and collaboration with experts in statistics, machine learning, informatics, pharmaceuticals, and the many clinical domains. It also allows our investigators a front-row seat in what is expected to be a sea-change in health research.

N3C was officially launched in September 2020 and is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). MaineHealth through its leadership in the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research (NNE-CTR) Network joined a larger national network of IDeA-CTRs, led by West Virginia CTSI, to contribute MH data to the platform.

Over 14 billion data rows are available in N3C, about: 1) the patient, 2) their diagnosis, 3) their treatments, 4) their lab results, 5) their healthcare provider. This is large portion of the information electronic health records contain about each COVID-19 case.

What’s Available

The N3C enclave currently holds data related to roughly:

• over 300 million visits,
• nearly 600 million clinical observations,
• over 300 million procedures; and
• over 3 billion laboratory results.

The data originate from national health records of more than 5 million COVID-19 patients, over 2 million of whom were confirmed to have COVID-19. More than 80 organizations have agreed to contribute health records for the effort.

More Information

For more information and to request N3C access, email Ivette Emery (ivette.emery@mainehealth.org) and check out the N3C website.

See this recent article from MIT Technology Review for an in depth look at N3C and how it started.