Over the past decade consumer health technologies have flooded the market. These include mobile health applications (apps), wearables, sensors as well as wireless and blue tooth enabled consumer and medical devices. The ONC has labeled this data, Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD).
Clinicians and researchers are realizing the important role the capture and sharing of this data can have in healthcare delivery and research overall.
Patients are creating an abundance of PGHD which can provide “a more holistic view of a patient’s health over time, increase visibility into a patient’s adherence to a treatment plan or study protocol, and enable timely intervention before a costly care episode. The ability to survey patients in real time, when previously these “Patient Reported Outcome Measures” (PROM) were administered by phone or in person, is game changing.
PGHD Increases data set Value
PGHD are important components of the digital healthcare revolution. Medaflex intends to append the data from these new technologies, which will inevitably become part of the patient record. In the summer of 2017, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched the Digital Health Innovation Action Plan which outlines its efforts to ensure citizens that access to these digital products will be timely, high quality, safe and effective.
There is little doubt that these new sources of data available to researchers, clinicians, and patients hold enormous potential for improving the quality, safety, and efficiency of medical care and research. This increases the positive patient outcome and makes our patient data more valuable.