>The health-care systems are financing the company, with each owning an equal share, Myerson said. He declined to say how much funding the company has received...Eventually, the company will sell access to the data. Pharmaceutical companies designing clinical trials or looking for information about side effects of medications would pay to access the data, Myerson said. For others, like student researchers, “we would want to find a way to make that happen,” he said.
>“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.
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.
>“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.