In the June 3 article, STAT National Technology Correspondent Casey Ross examined the Rochester, Minn.-based health system’s data sharing deals, ethical concerns about how data is used by health systems and how Mayo is working to improve patient consent practices.
Mayo’s 16 deals with tech companies have spurred less than $5 million; the health system annually generates $13 billion. Mayo executives told the publication that the organization does not sell patient data to brokers and instead partners with private firms as investments to co-create products derived from its physicians’ research and patient data.
One of the health system’s partnerships is with Google, which provides data storage and research support. Mayo said it may provide a small number of the tech giant’s employees access to identifiable patient data in limited circumstances, such as Mayo needing help from a Google engineer to combine certain data sets for AI research when it is not practical to remove identifying information.
“This would never be about us granting the keys to the data to Google,” said John Halamka, MD, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform. “It would be us bringing them in, and we would control their access.” Mayo Clinic Platform is the health system’s AI initiative for research and developing new treatments and digital services.
Mayo Clinic works with a data expert at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University to ensure patient privacy is adequately protected and fully de-identified when used by its investment arm Mayo Clinic Ventures.
To address ethical concerns posed by data sharing with commercial partners, the health system has begun to reexamine its consent process and launched a patient advisory committee to assess deals. Mayo also tapped a group of executives, physicians and lawyers to determine how to implement specific disclosures to patients or allow them to opt out of data sharing based on the circumstances. Mayo is also implementing tech that prevents any patient data from leaving the health system’s control.
“Today we’re working off consents that everybody felt good about several years ago,” Mayo Clinic Ventures chairman Andy Danielsen said. “But society’s notion of privacy and what should be accepted and not accepted is always changing. We’re constantly looking at our consents and saying, ‘Is this good? Is it adequate? Is it understandable?’ It’s a continual process that hopefully leads to improvement.”
More articles on data analytics:
States reportedly alter COVID-19 data amid reopening: 4 details
Tennessee to stop sharing COVID-19 patient data with first responders
Oregon healthcare workers say improper PPE data tracking is causing shortages
