4 ms·

The data is de-identified, and thus not subject to HIPAA restrictions. It's not made entirely clear in the article, but most of this data is insurance claims d

The data is de-identified, and thus not subject to HIPAA restrictions. It's not made entirely clear in the article, but most of this data is insurance claims data, not medical records per se. That's why employers have it. If your employer underwrites your medical claims directly - which most do nowadays - when you or your doctor submits an insurance claim, they are submitting it to your employer. It may go through a health insurance company - since most employers hire one to administer their plans - but that insurance company is collecting the information on behalf of the plan owned by your employer. The fact that it's insurance claims and not raw medical records is one of the challenges IBM had in making a business out of analyzing it. There is a lot less and less quality, medical data in insurance claims than IBM hoped.

peterth3 5y ago
> Medical data mining companies have made a business of scraping the details of consumers’ daily lives into medical dossiers that, if combined with MarketScan’s de-identified information, could be used to re-identify the individuals within its databases. De-identification is unreliable. If you have enough context, then the patients can be re-identified.
- walnutclosefarm 5y ago
  I agree that de-identification is imperfect, and re-identification is a risk (re-identification is, however, illegal in several states). However, the notion that there is big business in re-identifying medical records to target individuals is largely a myth, because there isn't a great market for individual-level information. Life insurance companies can't use it - they are required to get information they use for underwriting from the applicant, or with the applicant's permission. Companies who market medical products generally won't or can't use it (for one thing, it's typically not very timely - by the time your diagnosis appears in a re-identified data set, the time to get your attention is pretty well past for most conditions). The companies that came seeking medical records (I was until recently Chief Technology Officer for a clinic/hospital system with 10M active patient records) were satisfied with de-identified data, because they were looking for insights to develop new, or re-purpose existing, therapies and technologies, or to create marketing strategies for their tech. They had no need or desire to know who a particular patient was, because they were looking for broader insights.

peterth3 5y ago

> Medical data mining companies have made a business of scraping the details of consumers’ daily lives into medical dossiers that, if combined with MarketScan’s de-identified information, could be used to re-identify the individuals within its databases. De-identification is unreliable. If you have enough context, then the patients can be re-identified.

walnutclosefarm 5y ago
I agree that de-identification is imperfect, and re-identification is a risk (re-identification is, however, illegal in several states). However, the notion that there is big business in re-identifying medical records to target individuals is largely a myth, because there isn't a great market for individual-level information. Life insurance companies can't use it - they are required to get information they use for underwriting from the applicant, or with the applicant's permission. Companies who market medical products generally won't or can't use it (for one thing, it's typically not very timely - by the time your diagnosis appears in a re-identified data set, the time to get your attention is pretty well past for most conditions). The companies that came seeking medical records (I was until recently Chief Technology Officer for a clinic/hospital system with 10M active patient records) were satisfied with de-identified data, because they were looking for insights to develop new, or re-purpose existing, therapies and technologies, or to create marketing strategies for their tech. They had no need or desire to know who a particular patient was, because they were looking for broader insights.