As the respiratory disease COVID-19 is caused by a new pathogen, SARS-CoV-2, there is so much uncertainty that makes the battle against the pandemic even more challenging. Experts continue with their research work to have a better understanding on COVID-19's underlying physiology and its interactions with the body's different system processes.

A global community of researchers have formed the Consortium for Clinical Characterization of COVID-19 by EHR (4CE) – pronounced “foresee” – to help answer some of the clinical and epidemiological questions around COVID-19 through harmonisation and analysis of data stored in electronic health records (EHRs). 

In a recent paper (Brat et al. 2020) 4CE, comprising 96 hospitals across five countries, reports that the largely untapped EHR data is helpful in bridging the knowledge gaps about COVID-19. This includes data on incidence, prevalence, case-fatality rates, and clinical predictors of disease severity and outcomes. 

The consortium's initial efforts seek to consolidate, share and interpret data about the clinical trajectories of the infection in patients with a first focus on laboratory values and comorbidities. Within a three-week period, 96 hospitals in the United States (45), France (42), Italy (5), Germany (3) and Singapore (1) contributed data to the consortium.

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