Do I Own My Own Data?
The explosion of healthcare data is here especially as patients participate in sharing their very personal data with their healthcare providers. As clinicians & their teams monitor patients in an effort to manage chronic disease outside the hospital, somehow data is going to be put into a software application.
When a healthcare provider working in a private practice, hospital or a government-funded facility enters into an agreement with a software vendor, don't forget to ask if you own your data that you are capturing in the app you are using to run your practice.
Some vendors seem to think it is ok to take ownership of the data that the healthcare providers are capturing for their own financial gain. It’s a common problem with no end in sight.
Do You Think it’s Appropriate to Allow Anyone Else Other Than You or Your Patient to Have Ownership of Your Data?
As an executive running my own software company, the thought of NOT allowing the practice to own their own data doesn’t sit well with me. With a corporate background in the software and IT world, I have never seen this take place in any other industry. Nowhere, in my collective experience, have I seen such a thing. The thought of manufacturers, retailers, financial institutions, relinquishing their data to an enterprise software vendor of choice isn't likely to occur.
Moreover, I share the same sentiment when software companies claim to give their software at "no-charge". All in the meantime, their main source of revenue comes from the ability to collect large sums of data and then selling it to a wide variety of organizations across healthcare without the patient’s consent. This model doesn’t rely on licensing software to make money because it’s all in the data that you don’t own. Fundamentally, this just seems wrong.
It Must be a Collaborative Effort Between the Vendor and the Practice.
For example, something that must be noted in an agreement is the analysis of de-idenified data. This is the right thing to do.
Candidly, I still have trouble wrapping my mind around how and why healthcare organizations let their vendors get away with this.
Final Thoughts
You hear it often across various media outlets, “healthcare professionals are good at delivering care to patients”. However, we live in a world where the intersection of healthcare and business is at a turning poin.
Business Decisions Impact Delivery of Care to Patients.
Getting sound advice from unbiased technology sources might be something you want to consider prior to investing in a system.
Ultimately, providers are paying software companies licensing fees for the functionality of the software to capture data and help with the overall efficiency and workflow of a clinic. The line in the sand must be drawn and allow the clinics to take control of their patients data.
Before you enter into any kind of software purchase for your practice or hospital take a hard detailed look at your software agreement to get a clear picture of what rights to data are being transferred to the software vendors and whether or not that is in the best interests of your organization (especially your patients).
Consider having a conversation around this topic in order to get a clear understanding of how your patient data will be handled from the beginning of the marriage to the end of the marriage.
How else would you approach this serious discussion about who owns the data before you sign any agreement?