By Sara Gerke and Chloe Reichel
Who owns the data that are collected via direct-to-consumer (DTC) health apps? Who should own that data?
We asked our respondents to answer these questions in the third installment of our In Focus Series on Direct-to-Consumer Health Apps. Learn about the respondents and their views on data privacy concerns in the first installment of this series, and read their thoughts on consumer access to DTC health app data in the second installment.
By Sara Gerke and Chloe Reichel
Should consumers have access to the data (including the raw data) that are collected via direct-to-consumer (DTC) health apps? What real-world challenges might access to this data introduce, and how might they be addressed?
In this second installment of our In Focus Series on Direct-to-Consumer Health Apps, that’s what we asked our respondents. Learn about the respondents and their views on data privacy concerns in the first installment of this series. Read on for their thoughts on whether and how consumers should gain access to the data that direct-to-consumer health apps collect.
By Sara Gerke and Chloe Reichel
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) health apps, such as apps that manage our diet, fitness, and sleep, are becoming ubiquitous in our digital world.
These apps provide a window into some of the key issues in the world of digital health — including data privacy, data access, data ownership, bias, and the regulation of health technology.
To better understand these issues, and ways forward, we contacted key stakeholders representing a range of perspectives in the field of digital health for their brief answers to five questions about DTC health apps.
By Robert Horne and Lucia Savage
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as the digital revolution, leverages technology to blur the lines between products and services. In the health insurance sector, this revolution offers policymakers unique opportunities to improve coverage and payment efficiencies while providing meaningful benefits to beneficiaries.
Medicare could lead this charge. Congress has an opportunity to reform Medicare in 2024, when the Trust Fund will become insolvent. Policymakers expect Congress to address this problem legislatively to prevent interruptions in coverage for seniors.
If past behavior is any indication, the legislation will also include reforms to improve how the program operates and spends money. Reforms to Medicare’s traditional coverage and reimbursement approaches that harness the digital revolution can help the program secure additional value. We know this because other sectors of the U.S. economy that have fully embraced this revolution have realized additional value.
By Mary Witkowski, Susanna Gallani, and David N. Bernstein
As the economy reopens, a debate has emerged about whether to continue supporting telehealth and digital practices, or whether to return to pre-pandemic practices, practically relegating telehealth solutions and digital interactions to lower-value exceptions to traditional medical care.
The next set of regulatory and payment policies will likely set the trajectory for how digital health is integrated into the overall care model. We suggest that rather than making these policy decisions based on incremental thinking relative to historical pricing of in-person care, they ought to be based on an assessment of how they generate value for patients.
By Mary Ziegler
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed advocacy for reproductive rights and reproductive justice in what previously had been called an endless, unchanging, and intractable abortion conflict.
The pandemic — and the stay-at-home orders it required — finally shifted the movement’s focus to abortion access, rather than abortion rights, as exemplified by its emphasis on medication and telehealth abortion.
By Jayson Marwaha and Tiffany Tuedor
On April 5, 2021, a quiet, but potentially transformative shift regarding patient access to data occurred.
Health systems are now required to provide patients with timely access to their own medical records, upon request. (Shockingly, this hasn’t been a requirement in the past.)
By Wendy Netter Epstein and Charlotte Tschider
This May, Google announced a new partnership with national hospital chain HCA Healthcare to consolidate HCA’s digital health data from electronic medical records and medical devices and store it in Google Cloud.
This move is the just the latest of a growing trend — in the first half of this year alone, there have been at least 38 partnerships announced between providers and big tech. Health systems are hoping to leverage the know-how of tech titans to unlock the potential of their treasure troves of data.
Health systems have faltered in achieving this on their own, facing, on the one hand, technical and practical challenges, and, on the other, political and ethical concerns.
By Marie Clouqueur, Brent P. Forester, and Ipsit V. Vahia
Alongside the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S., the country faces another public health epidemic: dementia, and particularly Alzheimer’s disease.
Currently one in nine older adults in the U.S. — 6.2 million — have Alzheimer’s disease. The number of adults with Alzheimer’s in the U.S. will increase rapidly as the Baby Boomers age — it is expected to double by 2050.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation. Acute, surging demand for dementia care services will turn into a persistent problem if we do not increase our capacity for services and better support our frontline workers. We have a chance now to reflect and take action to prepare for what is coming.
By Chloe Reichel
States, employers, retailers, and other industries are now grappling with how to update mask policies in light of recent CDC guidance, which suggests vaccinated individuals may remove their face coverings indoors.
But without a system in place to discern who has been vaccinated, the guidance poses a major risk: unvaccinated individuals, who can still contract and spread the virus, may also opt to go maskless.
COVID-19 digital health passes, often called vaccine passports, may prove useful as a tool to relax mask policies. Vaccine passports can help to verify whether individuals may safely enter a space without a face covering.
Their ethical implementation, however, is contingent upon a number of factors: first and foremost, equitable access to vaccines. Other considerations include minimizing distrust, accessibility, risks of discrimination, and privacy protections.
For policy makers considering the implementation of COVID-19 vaccine credentialing programs, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University have developed a road map highlighting key considerations for their ethical design.
This post provides a summary of key considerations and responsive policy recommendations presented in the paper to guide more equitable implementation of vaccine passports and to minimize distrust.