South Korean eHealth Connections

Today's post is about recent random connections between eHealth and South Korea.

I came across a South Korean eHealth company called Health Connect, which is collaboration between one of the largest telecommunication companies SK Telecom and the premier university in South Korea - Seoul University. Seoul University Medical Centre is one of the top NIH funded clinical trial research centres in the world. I like their website design. 


Earlier last year I was contacted by someone at Samsung Medical Centre about eREB (Research Ethics Board) online systems. They developed one of their own in-house systems for online research ethics review and I have a research interest in "in-house" eREB systems development ( having programmed and designed one myself). Too bad my Korean is still not good enough to understand everything on their website in Korean, even though I lived in Korea for almost 4 years, have a Korean family, and still watch Korean TV dramas every day!


I would like to bring to your attention the prevalence of the Fitbit device. I went to a Health & Safety meeting and noticed that half of the people were wearing Fitbits on their wrists. There are activity competitions with teams at work and people are buying more Fitbits because the cheap pedometers reset unexpectedly and data is lost. A year or so ago I read an article that Fitbit was a fading fad, but that just does not seem to currently be the case. Outside of work, I am seeing more and more people wearing and connecting to these devices. Some days they even look ubiquitous.

Now here is the surprising Korean connection - the President and inventor of the Fitbit, James Park, is Korean!


One of the major problems I am having now with my Fitbit device is Ubuntu. The Fitbit dongle and sync tracking isn't supported for Linux or Ubuntu. A program called Galileo was written for free by Benoit Allard. I had it working just fine when I was using Ubuntu 14.0 but then I just upgraded to Ubuntu 16 and it isn't working. I am hopeless trying to share two Fitbits on the Mac and the iPad so I really need to try to get this working again on Ubuntu 16 so I can sync and see my online data. I have started to sink my toes into the murky depths of the Ubuntu Galileo setup, without too much hope. Posted the bug on the Allard Galileo website though.

An interesting direction for Googles' Deepmind appeared in the news & I immediately tweeted it out on my eHealth Twitter feed: "Why does Google want British patients' confidential records"? http://ibt.uk/A6XCB  

I have blogged about Deepmind before < http://earthspiritendless.blogspot.ca/2014/02/ethics-boards-for-googledeepmind-end-of.html >. Deepmind recently was the technology behind Alphago, an artificial intelligence Go program that beat the best Go player in the world. The best Go player in the world is the South Korean Lee, Seodol, fitting for this slightly Korean blog post. It doesn't surprise me that Deepmind is following the way of IBM and Watson, using AI to find discoveries using big health data.

Well that is the South Korean eHealth Connection for now. 

Mobile Health Apps Interactive Tool - Which privacy laws apply?

This is an interesting and useful screening tool for health app developers who want to know which privacy laws they may be subject to. Developed in the US, but good for anyone to think about:
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/mobile-health-apps-interactive-tool#which

Life as a Healthcare CIO: Introducing Snapchart

Life as a Healthcare CIO: Introducing Snapchart: Check out this game changer - Snapchart deletes patient information as soon as it’s viewed. What could be more secure than an empty EHR? ...

I am just copying and pasting and posting this article and giving all credit due. I am thinking however along these same lines for an article on researching health records, big data analytics, and consent for the use of patient records for research. Mostly I have been studying research data management plans and the trend towards sharing research data on well preserved data library repositories. I'd like to find out where the health data repositories are and I don't just mean with organizations like ICES.

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Policy/Spotlight-issues/Personal-information/Patient-records/index.htm

Sharing your patient record can help researchers save and improve lives

The NHS is creating a new system to share information from patient records to improve care and research, while protecting each person's confidentiality. Everybody in England can choose how information from their patient record is shared in this new system.
As you make up your mind about sharing your records, more than 40 medical research charities and organisations have joined together to tell you more about how your information can be used for medical research and help you find out more about how your information will be kept safe.

Every time you visit an NHS hospital or your GP, information about your health is recorded and stored in your patient record. The NHS uses this information to help provide the best clinical care for you.

Because your patient record contains personal information about your health, it must be handled very carefully and accessed safely and securely, protecting your confidentiality.
Information from your record can also be used to improve healthcare delivery for all patients, and by health researchers who use it to help them understand the causes of disease and to find better treatments.

Update
NHS England has announced that it plans to delay the collection of data from GP surgeries until the autumn and that it will work with patients and professional groups to ensure information is accessible and reaches all sections of the community in order to build confidence in the initiative.

We understand this decision as we believe that, whilst sharing information from medical records is important for medical research and healthcare delivery, the systems for achieving this need to be trusted and understood by everyone. This delay should allow for fuller communications that ensure people are aware of how their data will be collected and used, the safeguards that are in place, and how to exercise their right to object.

Your choices The NHS is contacting you now with information about the changes and your options

FAQs How researchers may access your information

Why do researchers need your information? Read examples of how researchers have used patient information to save and improve lives

Find out more Links to useful websites