How to Optimize Use of Health App Data While Protecting Users

HealthTech apps face mounting pressures to protect and secure sensitive data. A whopping 95% of all identity theft originates from stolen health records, at an estimated cost to the industry of $13B each year. In the face of this threat, many HealthTech startups feel compelled to prioritize compliance over extracting value from the data they collect and manage. But it doesn’t have to be a binary choice - it is possible to realize the potential of user data while staying compliant and secure. Transparency is key. 

Data challenges for HealthTech apps

When it comes to leveraging health data, most apps face the same challenges:

Data management

Insufficient investment in data-management platforms can result in fragmented systems that undermine reliability, trust, and transparency. Addressing data quality is crucial to avoid fragmented systems and siloed data.

Compliance

In a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, compliance is a constant challenge. HealthTech apps may need to consider regulations across multiple territories and have the flexibility to change in line with new directives.

Interoperability

Can data from one system interact securely and efficiently with another? Siloed systems can inhibit sharing and insights.

Data ownership

In a healthcare setting there can be multiple stakeholders, i.e. the user/patient, healthcare providers, practitioners. It’s very important to have a clear policy on the ownership/responsibility of an individual’s health data, and a robust system to regulate it.

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Managing the above is not just a professional and legal obligation - it is an essential foundation for an app that seeks to utilize health data to its full potential. 

Laying the foundations

It’s advisable to deploy compliance experts on an ongoing basis to ensure solutions meet evolving regulatory standards and to document compliance actions to demonstrate accountability. By taking precautions to understand prospective hazards and obtain outside perspectives on legal and ethical implications, a HealthTech startup can avoid potential harm and build trust with its users. Furthermore, it’s important to budget for a system that can de-identify the most sensitive user data and thus enable its safe use for aggregation and analysis. 

Transparent data policy

Having established the data infrastructure and process, the next challenge is to achieve compliance from users. It’s essential to be clear about the data that is being collected and how it is going to be used. A recent study found that 53% of fitness-tracker users supported the sharing of their data. Despite the horror stories of health-data breaches in recent years, the majority of users are willing to cooperate as long as they trust the app developer to handle their data in the way that is described. While there might be a temptation for an app developer to keep their options open and be ambiguous with disclaimers/messaging, the best way to gain user trust is to be honest and specific. If a health-data privacy policy cannot be articulated in a way that users can easily understand, it probably needs to be changed.

No need to compromise on security for usable data

Most software developers accept there is a tradeoff between data security and data utility, i.e. to increase the value of data is to increase the risk of breach/misuse. Decrypting data for external use is viewed as a compliance headache and a potential exposure to a ruinous data breach. While this might be true when using traditional security methods, there is a much better way.

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At Blind Insight, we offer encryption-in-use technology so you no longer have to make the choice. With low-code implementation options ranging from fully hosted to on-prem, encrypted data can be made available to a wide range of users without any risk to privacy or security. Business analysts can run queries and prepare investor reports; product teams can analyze how customers are using the company service; business development departments can even generate revenue by making data available for sale. All of this can be done without giving users access to the cleartext data or revealing any ePHI. 

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With the majority of users only allowed access to analyze encrypted data you can use Blind Insight to maintain secure control of the most sensitive data and capitalize on the de-identified data to drive your organization forwards.

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Learn more today at www.blindinsight.com

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