Digital healthcare innovations have the potential to vastly improve care by reducing costs, expediting treatment, and personalizing medicine. At the same time, digital healthcare tools have also brought up critical governance questions related to health data privacy and algorithmic transparency. How can we promote the use of digital tools to improve healthcare while also preserving privacy and equity?
Four Aspen Tech Policy Hub Fellows showcased their projects focused on “Improving Healthcare and Health Data Privacy.” Following the presentations of the projects, Aneesh Chopra, President of CareJourney and the first US Chief Technology Officer, gave further remarks.
The projects presented were:
Improving Medication Access with Better Prior Authorization: How can technology be used to improve prior authorization, the process of getting insurance approval before a physician provides a treatment? Lucy He and Christine Keung presented their proposal for a state-wide standard for real-time benefit tools, software products physicians consult before finalizing prescriptions.
“Smart” but Insecure: Improving Medical Device Cybersecurity: As “smart” medical devices continue to proliferate across the healthcare sector, healthcare organizations have been increasingly targeted by ransomware and other debilitating cyber attacks. These devices are often vulnerable to attacks, potentially allowing malicious hackers to steal patient data, modify medical exam results, or disrupt life-supporting machines. Fellow Daniel Bardenstein presented his proposal that the Food and Drug Administration establish a clear list of cybersecurity requirements for medical devices to receive FDA approval, including the use of Device Query interfaces.
Mitigating Algorithmic Bias in Government Healthcare AI Procurement: As digital tools become more common in medical decision-making, healthcare providers may risk exposing patient data or inadvertently using a tool that leads to racially biased outcomes. Fellow Matt Zhou presented a procurement request for proposal (RFP) generator tool that government procurement officials can use to incorporate and customize best practices for health tech governance into their RFPs and contractors.
This conversation is part of our Demo Day Series running in February and March 2022. Please see below for other events in this series.
