Privacy In Healthcare

Bravo, David Agus, who in The New York Times this week raises important points in the continuing debate about the value of medical data and the need for patient privacy. “Mass data can inform medicine like nothing else and save countless lives, including, perhaps, your own,” Agus argues in his Op-Ed. And he’s right.

Agus also tells doctors and patients to move past their respective resistance to providing patient data because it delivers tremendous benefits for the future of healthcare delivery. But, that’s easier said than done. As a result, too much valuable healthcare-related data remain in silos and therefore unusable in any meaningful way. I have witnessed this first hand all over the world.

The good news is that there is plenty of digitized healthcare information to spur healthcare efficiencies and improve patient …show more content…
The report covers three areas: the escalating need to appreciate the role non-identified data play in furthering our understanding of the connected healthcare system; how non-identifiable patient data contribute to the industry’s efforts to advance research, find new ways to prevent and combat disease; and, patient privacy and security frameworks that advance appropriate use of Big Data in healthcare.

Based on our research, the greatest opportunity to address healthcare gaps comes from accessing and using real-world, non-identified patient data, which go beyond typical clinical trial data and can provide insights into the efficacy and safety of medical treatments. The most critical benefit of sharing this type of data is the ability to link interactions, treatments and outcomes over time from diverse patient population. This approach has been successful in a number of ways,