The Use Of Big Data In Healthcare

Scope:

The three largest causes of deaths in Australia for 2018 were:

heart disease "inadequate blood supply (circulation) to a local area due to blockage of the blood vessels supplying the area" (Institute of medicine 2010)

dementia "describes a collection of symptoms that are caused by disorders affecting the brain" (Dementia Australia)

and cerebrovascular diseases "cerebrovascular disease refers to a group of conditions, diseases, and disorders that affect the blood vessels and blood supply to the brain". (What to know about cerebrovascular disease, Kraft, 2019)

Information can be gathered of potential patients that may struggle from these diseases and the information can be used to help them. This information is kept in the patient's My Health Record.

My Health Record:

My Health Record "is the national digital health record system." (My Health Record. For you and your family. p1). My Health Record records a patient’s health information and makes it available to medical practitioners.

Cloud based devices:

Cloud based computing "a model for allowing on demand network access to a number of configured computing resources (e.g. Network server, storage, application services.)". (Hashem et al. 2014, p. 4). By using Cloud computing data can be collected from any smart device such as phones, computers, smart watches and tablets. These devices can monitor a person’s health and this information is uploaded to a server.

Smart devices: Smart devices can be used to help patients who suffer from dementia or memory loss. The device stores the patient’s personal information like name, residential address and contact number. Smart devices can also be used to find a patient if they are missing by using GPS technology to determine their location.

Apple iWatch healthcare: The Apple iWatch has healthcare features like "notifications and the ECG app, it can provide you and your patients with important information concerning their heart health" (Apple watch health care). The watch tracks the patient’s heart rate and notifies them if its too high at rest or if its irregular. Later devices come with an accelerometer and gyroscope to detect if the patient had a fall.

Legal:

The legal use and distribution of private information is covered in the privacy act.

The privacy act 1988 exists "to promote the protection of the privacy of individuals and to recognise that the protection of the privacy of individuals is balanced with the interests of entities in carrying out their functions or activities". (Privacy act 1988. Section 2A.b)

The My health record act "authorisation to collect, use or disclose information under this Act is also an authorisation to do so for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988". (My Health Record act. Section 4)

An entity may disclose information if "the entity reasonably believes that the collection, use or disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or safety."(Privacy act 1988. Section 16A)

Conclusion:

My health record stores a person’s records who voluntarily sign up for personal health information collection and is protected by the My Health Record act 2012 and the Privacy act 1988. Some of this data can be used to assist with a person’s health care and potentially save lives. Other information of a person’s personal health is collected by cloud based smart devices like the Apple watch. This information includes heart rate, respiratory status and GPS location but is not made available on the My Health Record database.