The Legal And Ethical Concerns That Arise From Using Complex Predictive Analytics In Health Care

• Published in: Health Affairs Vol. 33; no. 7; pp. 1139 - 1147
• Main Authors: Cohen, I. Glenn, Amarasingham, Ruben, Shah, Anand, Xie, Bin, Lo, Bernard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States The People to People Health Foundation, Inc., Project HOPE 01.07.2014
• Subjects: Algorithms; Big Data; Biomedical Research - ethics; Consent; Cost; Data collection; Data Interpretation, Statistical; Data Mining - ethics; Data Mining - legislation & jurisprudence; Datasets; Datasets as Topic - ethics; Datasets as Topic - legislation & jurisprudence; Delivery of Health Care - ethics; Delivery of Health Care - legislation & jurisprudence; Ethics; Federal regulation; Government and politics; Health care; Health care access; Health care expenditures; Health care industry; Health care policy; Hospitals; Human subjects; Humans; Medical service; Models, Statistical; Patients; Physicians; Predictive analytics; Privacy; Real time; Regulation; Studies; Technology adoption; United States > US; Medicine/Clinical Issues; Ethical Issues; Research And Technology; Information Technology
• ISSN: 0278-2715; 2694-233X; 1544-5208; 2694-233X
• DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0048

Predictive analytics, or the use of electronic algorithms to forecast future events in real time, makes it possible to harness the power of big data to improve the health of patients and lower the cost of health care. However, this opportunity raises policy, ethical, and legal challenges. In this article we analyze the major challenges to implementing predictive analytics in health care settings and make broad recommendations for overcoming challenges raised in the four phases of the life cycle of a predictive analytics model: acquiring data to build the model, building and validating it, testing it in real-world settings, and disseminating and using it more broadly. For instance, we recommend that model developers implement governance structures that include patients and other stakeholders starting in the earliest phases of development. In addition, developers should be allowed to use already collected patient data without explicit consent, provided that they comply with federal regulations regarding research on human subjects and the privacy of health information.