A key trade group for medical devices is creating a new advocacy platform that could help its members leverage up-and-coming data-driven healthcare technologies.

The new Center for Digital Health, a subsidiary of AdvaMed (Advanced Medical Technology Association), will highlight the role that data and electronic health devices can play together. The center, which builds on AdvaMed’s Digital Health Sector initiative from 2016, aims to help association members analyze rising digital health trends, network together, build public policy positions, and engage with stakeholders and policymakers in the U.S. and beyond.

Additionally, the program will make available advocacy resources to its members.

In a news release, AdvaMed President and CEO Scott Whitaker said the goal of the program is to “bridge the gap between patients and the latest in health care innovation.”

“Our aim is to be the resource and gathering place for all stakeholders in this exciting—yet challenging—new frontier of digital health, with the ultimate goal of improving patient care,” Whitaker said in a news release.

So far, members taking part in the center include well-known names in both technology (Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm) and healthcare (Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Pfizer). Some consumer brands, including DNA-testing service 23andMe, are also members.

AdvaMed Chief Strategy Officer Andy Fish noted that data use will become an increasingly important issue in the coming years.

“Digital technologies and data-enabled insights and interventions are fundamentally changing how patient care is delivered,” Fish said in the release. “This new era of care will be revolutionary, not just evolutionary, but we’re still in new territory and there are barriers to overcome on the way to a future in which the promise of digital health is fully realized.”

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