Why there’s a growing urgency for patient-centric data exchange

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In some respects, healthcare is a great equalizer. Whether you are a U.S. senator or a blue-collar worker, a colonoscopy is still a colonoscopy.

Because nearly every person who lives in the U.S. — including those of us who work in the healthcare industry — is a healthcare consumer, it’s intriguing that healthcare data exchange is not more patient-centric.

Maybe it’s because many of us don’t often stop to consider how our data is used, or the importance of safeguarding our health data and what it could mean for us if that data is breached.

Or, maybe it’s because while there has been an increasing emphasis on getting more data to patients and empowering them to take a more active role in their care decisions (think 21st Century Cures Act), there has been less of an emphasis on how patient privacy can be safeguarded as it is shared with various entities using myriad technologies.

As someone who works to ensure secure, privacy-centric data exchange, I believe we must push towards more patient-centric data exchange if we are going to empower and protect patients, which I think we can all agree is a worthwhile, important goal.

What makes data exchange patient-centric?

Data exchange is patient-centric if it meets one of two litmus tests – if the patient is in control of the data exchange, or if the focus of the data exchange is the patient, and only the patient.

What does that look like, practically? When a patient is in control, they knowingly understand or have given their consent to the reasons for which their data will be used.

Continue to Health Data Management to read the full article.

Mike Arce is the chief administrative officer at Moxe Health, an interoperability company that focuses on privacy- and patient-centric clinical data exchange.