The Opaque Global Trade in Patient Medical Data

The Opaque Global Trade in Patient Medical Data

Any medical chart review company fully understands the need to protect the highly sensitive patient data they handle. It is a great concern when one hears news frequently about how such data is compromised.

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Any medical chart review company providing medical chart review solutions fully understands the need to protect the highly sensitive patient data they handle. Therefore it is always a great concern when one hears news frequently about how such data is compromised, putting people at considerable risk. Recent news in eurasiareview.com was about the trade in patient data that is done across the globe without the knowledge of the patients themselves. Most healthcare officials and even the governments do not know about this because the entire thing is discreetly done. In fact, many authorities were shocked to know that such trading existed in their country.

The write-up in eurasiareview.com highlighted the US-based data mining firm QuintilesIMS that operates in more than 100 countries, and is at the center of a for-profit global trade in anonymized patient data. This is a $20 billion company that gathers dossiers on more than half a billion patients worldwide; the data is collected from medical records, prescriptions, insurance claims, and lab tests among others. Data miner dossiers are legal under US rules and is used mostly to assist pharmaceutical firms advertise and market their drugs. Apart from this, data mining is said to be beneficial from the point of view of making new cures and discoveries.

However, patient privacy is at tremendous risk because of this practice. The dossiers do omit personally identifiable information such as names and national ID numbers but are vulnerable to re-identification with advancements in computer technology and a steady inflow of data that provides more clues as to who is who, and where patients live and work. Another major issue associated with this re-identification is the increasing possibility of the risk of discrimination against people with mental health issues or other medical complications.

The data miners generally do not obtain consent from the patients; they say that since the data is anonymized properly it is unidentifiable. However, it is seen that a simple code could unlock the patients’ national ID numbers. A lawsuit has been brought against QuintilesIMS, and this company argues that only anonymous healthcare data is mined. Moreover, they say that they take further steps to make sure that the mined data remains anonymous. Though Europe takes pride in its stronger personal data protection standards than the US, data miners advertise anonymized patient dossiers from a number of European countries as well. QuintilesIMS sells electronic health record details, hospital discharges, prescriptions and patient registries.

There is no doubt whatsoever that even if the data is anonymized, consent from the data owner is most important, and it is totally unethical to disclose patient data to anyone without their consent. Data miners do not usually talk publicly about how the entire process works, which is a major stumbling block. In the absence of specific and clear-cut guidance or government

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instructions, such for-profit data mining companies will go around quietly collecting the medical data. Countries worldwide should work to ensure an open, informed public debate for forming regulations on anonymized data in today’s expanding globalized health data market.

www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com

(800) 670 2809