Many people absentmindedly check yes to organ donation, giving the potential to save lives. Electing to share your health data should be viewed and organized in a similar fashion, Erik Lefkofsky, founder and CEO of Tempus, argues in a June 7 Fast Company article.
Mr. Lefkofsky argues that health data, similar to organ transplant data, has the potential to save lives when properly decoded and analyzed. By combining and de-identifying data from across health systems, patient data on a large scale could be used to advance therapeutics, better drug discovery and create improved treatments.
Before organ donation was standardized, each individual hospital had its own policies about it, as is the case today with health data. Thus, there is a path to standardization of health data practice and policy, argues Mr. Lefkofsky.
"When appropriately secured and de-identified in compliance with applicable laws and regulations — as is the case with organ donation — data can enable doctors and researchers to learn from the experience of today’s patients to help tomorrow's," he wrote.