Protecting Patient Privacy

Healthcare is experiencing a surge in the use of personal health data beyond its primary intended purpose: taking care of patients. This secondary use of health data—or the use of data for purposes other than clinical care—may be used internally for research, clinical quality, operations improvement and creation of registries, or it may be exported and potentially shared with third parties for research or other purposes.

The ascension of AI and machine learning in healthcare has further expanded the universe of potential uses to advance our knowledge and improve patient care, simultaneously creating new complexities governing data usage. Standardized processes and good governance practices are necessary not only to protect patient privacy and data security, but also to ensure that algorithms—the foundation of AI and ML—are examined to prevent systematizing bias.