Potential Conflicts Between PHR Principles

ePatient, Social Networking, Personal Health Record
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ePatient, Social Networking, Personal Health Record
Data sharing is a key principle of an ideal PHR; however, it conflicts to a great extent with another important principle: data ownership, control, and privacy. While data sharing is integral in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare, it can be limited by the principle of data ownership, control, and privacy, which is valued by patients. In essence, it is vital to find a solution that ensures patients have ownership, control, and privacy of their data while, at the same time, healthcare remains effective and efficient.
Data sharing is valuable in improving healthcare but raises key privacy concerns. According to Shen et al. (2019), data sharing helps healthcare providers access patient histories quickly hence facilitating better decision-making in treatment options. The authors also point out that data sharing enhances research and analytics because, with aggregated patient data, researchers can develop evidence to support quality improvement, innovation, and better policy decision-making (Shen et al., 2019). While in the end, the patients can benefit from data sharing, they may not be aware of other disclosures of their information. According to Chiruvella and Guddati (2021), the recent influx of big tech companies, such as Amazon, into the healthcare sector further complicates the issue of privacy. With such companies having commercial interests in patient data, they may not do enough to protect the confidentiality of patients. Chiruvella and Guddati (2021) point out that in such cases, patient data may be used for advertisement purposes. In addition, there have been frequent reports in the media about hacking or mismanagement of personal information, meaning that patient data control and privacy is compromised to a great extent. Privacy breaches can result in harm, such as social and economic discrimination, coercion, and hidden influence and manipulatio...