At ahti we follow interesting news items about health, data and innovation. In this way, we gain insights about improvements in health and healthcare. In the last few weeks we have found the following items to share with you. Some are in Dutch, some are in English.

Data rules, use, ethics and value

1. EU must overhaul flagship data protection laws, says a ‘father’ of policy – Financial Times, 03-03-2021
Europe’s flagship data protection laws are already out of date and must be heavily revised for a post-pandemic world, said a member of the European parliament who spent years drafting the measures. (…) “We have to be aware that GDPR is not made for blockchain, facial or voice recognition, text and data mining [ . . . ] artificial intelligence,” said the German MEP. “The digital world is about innovation. We cannot stick with principles established in the 80s that do not reflect the new situation we are living in,” he said.

2. Artificial intelligence for good health: a scoping review of the ethics literature – BMC Medical Ethics, 15-02-2021
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been described as the “fourth industrial revolution” with transformative and global implications, including in healthcare, public health, and global health. AI approaches hold promise for improving health systems worldwide, as well as individual and population health outcomes. While AI may have potential for advancing health equity within and between countries, we must consider the ethical implications of its deployment in order to mitigate its potential harms, particularly for the most vulnerable. This scoping review addresses the following question: What ethical issues have been identified in relation to AI in the field of health, including from a global health perspective?

3. The other side of the coin: Harm due to the non-use of health-related data – International Journal of Medical Informatics, January 2017
The non-use of health-related data is a complex issue with multiple explanations.
It is implicated in the deaths of many thousands of people and potentially £billions in societal financial burdens. Proving its role is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a large, agile, polymorphic, lethal, black cat that most certainly is there. A wider understanding of its nature is required before it can be captured and successfully tamed. Initiatives addressing data non-use must be cognisant of the issues within their domain and across the broader perspective.

4. Value from health data: European opportunity to catalyse progress in digital health – The Lancet, February 2021
Innovations in digital health are expected to transform health care, health research, and public health in the years ahead. WHO’s digital health strategy emphasises the potential for digital health to transform global health and improve the health of all people.1 During the COVID-19 pandemic expectations for data and artificial intelligence (AI) have been high, with applications in epidemic modelling, diagnostics, triage and patient outcomes, vaccine and drug development, detection of misinformation, and identification of regions of greatest need.2 In the laboratory, open sharing of viral genomes has led to rapid development of diagnostics; in the community, countries have introduced digital contact tracing systems and QR code scanning of travel histories, helping to facilitate effective public health surveillance.3 Yet there are still challenges to overcome before the widespread benefits from data, AI, and digital health can be realised.4, 5 Three of these challenges are crucially important.

5. Sharing ICU Patient Data Responsibly Under the Society of Critical Care Medicine/European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Joint Data Science Collaboration – Critical Care Medicine, 24-02-2021

Critical care medicine is a natural environment for machine learning approaches to improve outcomes for critically ill patients as admissions to ICUs generate vast amounts of data. However, technical, legal, ethical, and privacy concerns have so far limited the critical care
medicine community from making these data readily available. The Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine have identified ICU patient data sharing as one of the priorities under their Joint Data Science Collaboration. To encourage ICUs worldwide to share their patient data responsibly, we now describe the development and release of Amsterdam University Medical Centers Database (AmsterdamUMCdb), the first freely available critical care database in full compliance with privacy laws from both the United States and Europe, as an example of the feasibility of sharing complex critical care data.

Bekijk de pdf: PDF Sharing ICU Patient Data Responsibly Under the 95320

Innovation

6. Machine learning-model kan ziekenhuisbedden vrijspelen – Skypr, 09-02-2021
Een model dat voorspelt of patiënten na een operatie in het ziekenhuis moeten blijven, kan onnodige bezetting van ziekenhuisbedden voorkomen. Het Erasmus MC beloonde Davy van de Sande, die het model ontwikkelde, deze week met de Gerrit Jan Mulder prijs voor zijn onderzoek.

7. Algoritme berekent kans om ernstig ziek te worden van coronavirus – Amsterdam UMC, 12-02-2021
Onderzoekers van Amsterdam UMC hebben een algoritme ontwikkeld dat voor patiënten van elke huisartspraktijk het risico berekent om ernstig ziek te worden door het coronavirus. Het algoritme helpt met het slim identificeren en selecteren van patiënten die voor vaccinatie in aanmerkingen komen. Ook kan het de regio ondersteunen bij het tijdig sturen van de zorgcapaciteit.

8. Coronapatiënten sneller naar huis voor herstel dankzij speciale pleister van Philip – Eindhovens Dagblad, 01-03-2021
Philips stopt de dokter in een doosje. Dat doosje, ontwikkeld en gemaakt in Eindhoven, wordt op de buik geplakt waarna slimme technologie de patiënt thuis in de gaten houdt. Zodat de ziekenhuizen minder vol liggen met patiënten die herstellende zijn van een coronabesmetting.

9. Zorg Dichterbij: Geef artsen vrijheid bij keuze nieuwe technologie – Zorgvisie, 09-02-2021
Volgens Ruud Davids van het programma Zorg Dichterbij van Tergooi moeten zorgprofessionals vrij worden gelaten bij de keuze voor nieuwe technologie. Dat er dan een veelheid aan nieuwe technologische snufjes binnen een ziekenhuis ontstaat, is niet erg. ‘Uiteindelijk komt het allemaal weer samen.’

Finance in healthcare

10. Voorkomen van duurdere zorg moet aantrekkelijker worden voor zorgfinanciers – Rijksoverheid.nl, 26-02-2021
Het kabinet werkt aan een wet om meer samenwerking over de verschillende zorg-domeinen te stimuleren (Wet langdurige zorg, Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning en Zorgverzekeringswet). Met deze wet moet het voor de inkopende partijen meer lonen om te investeren in preventieve maatregelen om duurdere zorg te voorkomen of uit te stellen. De ministerraad heeft besloten dat het ‘wetsvoorstel domein-overstijgende samenwerking’ begin maart 2021 ter consultatie via internet wordt aangeboden. Dit houdt in dat alle geïnteresseerden vanaf dat moment zes weken de tijd hebben om hier op te reageren. De resultaten van de internetconsultatie helpen het volgende kabinet in de besluitvorming over het wetsvoorstel.