Recent encouragements to integrate and leverage consumer [patient] generated data in the world of healthcare poses a unique threat to patient privacy that isn’t addressed nearly enough. According to the 2021 healthcare trends report published by Apploi, said patient data would be collected via monitoring devices installed in homes, on smartphones, in public places, and healthcare facilities that would have the capability to regularly record and upload patient data that would get sent to providers. As the dependence on digital health increases, so do the barriers that will need to be addressed which include: unreliable access to the internet, privacy, and the cost affordability of remote monitoring devices. Although there are many concerns when it comes to privacy, interoperability and data silos are the two that would need to be most urgently addressed. The major shift that our healthcare system recently underwent to truly embrace technology significantly increases the potential for patient data leaks; however, one company at the forefront of privacy security innovation has offered some potential solutions.
Apploi may primarily serve as the world’s easiest high-volume recruitment platform, but that certainly didn’t let that stop them from coming up with potential resolutions for data silos and interoperability. As published in their 2021 report, Apploi announced their recognition that what society needs is not another data silo but a truly interconnected solution that pulls in data from a variety of sources in order to further preventive health. Of course recognition is in no means a permanent solution, but any step in the right direction is an important one in this case. Interoperability concerns could very easily be resolved with on the job training, especially since healthcare professionals would have the continued support of augmented intelligence (AI) technology to ease the transition. The statement recently published by Apploi may not address every single one of the issues presented by the ever growing sources of devices capable of uploading personal data, but they certainly take the initiative to provide solutions where they can.
Apploi is one of a scarce few companies to put in the work to back up the beliefs on which they are based. In the 2021 report, John Nosta of the Google Health Advisory Board and WHO Technology perfectly summarizes the institution as one in the business of “creating a reality in which clinician and machine are inexorably connected for the benefit of humankind.”
