December 10, 2013
New first for Special Olympics – analysing longitudinal health screening data

For the last 11 years Health One Global has been the exclusive Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Global Partner for electronic health records.  Over that time hundreds of thousands of health screenings have been recorded by Special Olympics using HealthOne in every US State and in 100 other countries.

The Special Olympics database is now the world’s richest, largest, most comprehensive database on the health parameters of people with intellectual disabilities.

At Special Olympics request Health One Global analysed this historic data for the athletes of Special Olympics New York to create longitudinal records for the athletes of SO New York to track the changes in athlete health over the last 10 years.

Health One Global’s analysis showed that there were 7,160 health screenings recorded for SO New York athletes from 2004 to the present day.  Special Olympics were supplied with the serial longitudinal screening data for all the athletes.  Many athletes had had multiple screenings over the 10 year period, some as many as 12 screenings, giving Special Olympics a unique insight into how the health parameters of those athletes have changed over time.

Special Olympics has now requested Health One Global to analyse the longitudinal health screening data of the athletes in a further 21 US Special Olympics Programs, whose athletes, taken together with SO New York, total 379,229 registered athletes.

Special Olympics is the only organization in the world with the capability to look at the health parameters of people with intellectual disabilities on this scale, in such detail, and over so many countries, thanks to the 11 year relationship with Health One Global.