I don't mean you, even if you are the
one physically in possession of the app. I am talking about the one
that owns the rights to the app or where the data it generates is
stored. These may be owned by different companies, both with
conflict-of-interest issues. Because I do not own any medical apps,
I can only tell you what a friend had happen to him. He purchased
the app from Amazon, and started using it. About two months later he
received a notice that his insurance will not be covering his
condition because he is not following his doctor's instructions.
Now he is confused, as he thought he was
doing everything correctly, and he contacts his doctor and discovers
he is doing everything like he was told. He took the notice to his
doctor who wrote a letter explaining that he is following his
directions. Approximately a month later he received
another letter stating that his monthly premium will be increasing by
what amounts to one and one half times what it had been. The reason
given is that his results are not in the range they should have been
for the medication he is taking.
Because he has an appointment the next
day, he took the notice with him. When the doctor completed the
appointment, he showed the doctor the notice. The doctor knows
immediately what the problem may be. His doctor asks him if he is
using (names the app). My friend said he hadn't told anyone and
especially not his doctor. This surprised even me, but it turns out
that the application was owned by one insurance company and the data
storage was owned by another insurance company. Together they had
purchased several apps and storage rights to the data generated.
The doctor said he had several patients
that were caught in this system. What the outcome will be, I don't
know. Even my friend does not know what will happen. He has receive
a third letter stating that his premium will not go up, but is
waiting for the next bad news letter.
My friend has stopped using the app and
says he will not buy another medical app. His doctor says that in
the future, he needs to find out who owns a piece of each app before
purchasing it. I am relying on my friend for the information that he
provided, but this points out problems we need to be conscious of
when purchasing and using medical apps.
Trisha Torrey who writes for About dot
Com tells a different concern about the use of data by an insurance
company. I would urge you to take time to read her information here.
This also points out the need to be aware of where the information
generated by the app you purchased in good faith, is being used
without your knowledge. I agree that none of us would trust an
insurance company with our personal medical data although we have to
get claims paid, but they don't need every medical detail generated
by a medical app.
In my research and reading, I do read
several doctor blogs and blogs by people in health information
technology (HIT). Many are talking about medical applications, but
only as they relate to integrating the information into your
electronic health record (EHR). They have not even been concerned
about who else had access to this information. The doctors are only
concerned about what they may gain from the health app without
expending funds.
The next five to ten years will be very
interesting with the proliferation of medical applications. I will
be watching to see if we see more of what I have described as I can
believe with all the greed that many companies have, we will need to
be very careful how our personal data is captured and used. The
other area of concern needs to be how well future applications are
able to work together and if we can avoid the overly proprietary
applications available today.
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