A new report from the White House Big Data Working Group outlines patient privacy concerns regarding the use of big data in predictive medicine and calls for new laws governing the data.
The report identified predictive medicine as the "ultimate application of big data in health." For predictive medicine, healthcare providers analyze various types of data — including lifestyle, genomic, medical and financial — from groups of individuals to help identify diseases and health concerns in others.
Because of the advancements in research and the many types of data used in predictive medicine, current patient privacy protection models and laws need to be changed, according to the report.
Many times the data collected for predictive medicine purposes is governed and regulated by various and sometimes conflicting laws — including HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act.
Because of the difficulty associated with applying the current laws and patient privacy framework to predictive medicine, the President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology have concluded universal standards that facilitate controlled access to information across many different types of records need to be adopted, according to the report.
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