Personalized medicine is the art of customizing healthcare by leveraging and implementing strategic integration of technology and science. Personalized medicine is built on trust between payers, providers, and patients. This digital identity is the core foundation of personalized healthcare. Privacy and security of digital identity in personalized medicine is a combination of mindful patient information flow and inclusion of ethics, strategy, and technology. This chapter describes how to implement a safe and secure digital identity using the concept of designing data-centric compliance or "trust by design."
TopIntroduction
The fifth industrial revolution brings personalization to the forefront in the healthcare industry. This revolution is a combination of purposeful innovation, inclusivity of technology and human intelligence. This has impacted healthcare to a great extent. This rise of the fifth industrial revolution has led to the rise of a unique and mindful medicine field called personalized medicine. As the healthcare industry is adopting and entering the fifth industrial revolution, it is impossible to say how this revolution will influence the evolution of personalized medicine.
It is an era where personalization is at the forefront in all industries. Personalized medicine is in high demand and will improve the quality of healthy living. It considers the uniqueness of a patient, their genetics, their physiology, and any preexisting conditions, and creates a customized medicine for that individual to cure and prevent rare diseases. In other words, it is one of the core foundations for the future smart healthcare ecosystem.
The heavy transformation of healthcare is digitization of the patient profile, health records, and all possible health-related information. In other words, a digital identity is already being created for each patient in healthcare.
As a result, personalized medicine is rising, and adaptability is slowly increasing. Personalized medicine and healthcare are on high demand and will improve the quality of healthy living. This rise of this emerging field will create a complete patient profile to create customized healthcare. This very existence of the patient’s digital identity and building or improving it is the core validation of the patients’ existence and their health journey through time.
This all looks promising, but it has its unique challenges. Some challenges include governance and compliance of digital identity and access management. For personalized medicine to happen and effectively work, we need large sets of data. This Big Data needs to be driven from multiple health systems, medical devices, and other healthcare platforms. But this also raises the big concerns- clarity, security, and privacy.
Health data is the core foundation for personalized medicine. Digital data governance needs to be established. Digital and data governance is a critical need and a mandatory framework which can help personalized medicine. This governance includes but not limited to the following
- ●
Understanding which data is important and needed.
- ●
Understanding what data types, sources of critical data.
- ●
Securing the data flow through multiple systems like mobile health apps, AI, wearables, diagnostics, pharma equipment.
- ●
Implementing data intelligence.
- ●
Implementing ethical intelligence.
TopBackground
Personalized medicine is based on trust: the trust patients have in payers and providers. Building trust and continuing the bond of trust with patients, improving effective healthcare, and providing unique customized healthcare needs to be done with the privacy and security of patient information in mind.
As with many emerging new fields, personalized medicine has its regulatory challenges. Personalized medicine is encouraged nationally and globally. There are also a considerable number of initiatives on creating the regulatory roadmap. Privacy and security of patient information is at the core of these upcoming regulations and standards. Thus, the perspective and center on which compliance roadmap is built helps to create an impactful and trustworthy healthcare.
Personalized medicine’s goal is to create the best customized healthcare strategy for the patient.
Figure 1. The harmony and balance of personalized medicine
Figure 1 describes personalized medicine as a delicate balance and harmony of the patient’s information obtained from two main possible sources: humans and technology. This balance and harmony need to be understood to create an effective personalized medicine in a safe and secure manner. This also describes the importance of the digital patient identity and information collected from both these sources.