Seattle startup to share health data on millions of hospital patients(seattletimes.com)
seattletimes.com
Seattle startup to share health data on millions of hospital patients
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/major-hospital-systems-plan-to-share-anonymous-data-on-millions-of-patients-through-seattle-startup/
3 comments
I'm curious if this is already commonplace. Does it vary across the world, in different healthcare systems?
Unfortunately, it seems increasingly apparent that it is. It is especially common in clinical research to gather troves of data "anonymize" it, and release it publicly. I'm very curious how patient data can really be meaningfully anonymized if health conditions or treatments are combined with geographic data.
Recent history suggests we haven't really come up with effective, objective standards to truly anonymize health data. Certainly, this is not what most patients have in mind when they seek care.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2076397
Recent history suggests we haven't really come up with effective, objective standards to truly anonymize health data. Certainly, this is not what most patients have in mind when they seek care.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2076397
>“I cannot break the trust with my patients that their information will be used for any nefarious purposes,” said Compton-Phillips, from Providence. “This is absolutely not Cambridge Analytica.”
Bottom line, if you have to assure the public that a scheme to sell patient health data on the open market is "not Cambridge Analytica", you may have a problem.