Data and technology provide endless opportunities to streamline and improve today's healthcare services. The challenge is to ensure privacy along the way.
– We want to do something meaningful, says Håvard Thøgersen, COO at Deepinsight, and continues:
– The opportunities within eHealth are enormous. Think about all the data that is collected on our health and what opportunities it can provide health professionals in the future. It’s within this revolution in health technology where we at Deepinsight want to use our expertise in data, machine learning and software development in the future, Thøgersen explains.
Strict privacy rules have so far put a stop to much of the development in the healthcare sector. In 2021, on the other hand, amendments were finally adopted to the Health Personnel Act and the Patient Records Act so that it will be easier to use health information to develop new services based on artificial intelligence.
Legislative Changes Create Opportunities
The changes in the Health Personnel Act and the Patient Records Act make it easier to use knowledge about one patient to learn how to treat other patients who are similar. It is also possible for health information to be used for the development and use of decision support tools for health personnel.
- It’s good to see that the healthcare sector finds solutions to the legal issues that have slowed down development, and opens up for new solutions that can help health professionals make good decisions based on data, says Thøgersen.
Based on Trust Between Health Professionals and the Population
Even with the changes in health laws, privacy is still a major challenge. Europe has chosen one of the world's strictest approaches to privacy and, first and foremost, protects the individual - which is positive for us who live here.
– It is perhaps less complicated to develop new health services in countries outside of Europe, but we must play by the rules we have here and come up with good solutions that do not compromise the rights of the population. That will be for the best for all parties, Thøgersen states and adds:
– Basically, it’s about the trust in the population. If the health personnel have been given confidence and trust, the willingness to share data will follow. If they don’t have that, the job will be much more difficult.
With the volume of data the healthcare sector will be using in the future, it is very important to implement good routines for how regulations are to be complied with and security ensured. It is therefore essential that the work starts at the right end.
Development of Decision Support Tools that Save Lives
– The first thing we must do in order to develop new data-driven tools for the healthcare sector is to understand the problems and how we can help health professionals become more efficient or provide better health care. When we know what we want to achieve, we must work backwards and figure out how we can collect the necessary data while at the same time safeguarding security and privacy, Thøgersen explains.
The goal of developing data based decision support tools is to give doctors better insight when treating new patients. The collection of data will take place automatically, but you must ensure that the data is of good quality.
– Decision support tools based on data allow for better and more accurate treatments where doctors can compare patients. Maybe even across national borders, if the regulations allow it. That could make it easier to treat rare diseases, says Thøgersen.
In addition, Deepinsight plans to look at data-driven solutions that can streamline hospital operations. Data can help the administration to utilize the hospital's resources in the best possible way, as well as contribute to effective planning of the daily work.
– Better use of data in the healthcare sector will be of great benefit to health professionals, the administration, the patients and their relatives, Thøgersen explains.
Deepinsight is building deep expertise on data that is currently collected in hospitals. The goal is to connect this competence with the understanding of which problems it will provide value to solve.
– Our hypothesis is that a lot of valuable data lies deep within the hospital systems. At the same time, we believe the real gold lies in what can be collected in the future. One of the advantages we have in Norway is the trust and opportunities we have to create high-quality data, says Thøgersen.