In today’s digital world, unless we are
living under a rock, most of us would have bought things online; some of us
also would have sold things online using the services of e-commerce websites.
Imagine going online, but instead of purchasing a mobile phone or a t-shirt,
you are able to buy healthcare-related data generated by patients! It can be
related to the efficacy of a brand of antidiabetic medicine, or side effect
profile of a particular group of pain killers, or the cost of different brands
of anticancer medicines, or the effect of an antidepressant medicine on liver
and kidney function.
The concept of healthcare data marketplace
or healthcare data monetisation is all about the purchase and sale of
healthcare related data. This concept is becoming popular across the world, and
is also making an entry into India. Earlier this month, MarksMan Healthcare
Communications Pvt. Ltd. launched India’s first Healthcare Data Marketplace and
Healthcare Data Monetization platform called KYT or Know Your Treatment.
But the real question is, who would buy
such health-related information? What about confidentiality? How would a misuse
of such healthcare data be prevented? And more basically, is such a healthcare
data marketplace really required?
The easiest to answer is the last question.
Dr Amit Dang, MD, Pharmaceutical Physician, Founder and CEO of MarksMan
Healthcare Communications and Founder of KYT explains: “As on 2019, the
estimated value of healthcare analytics market is a whopping 14.0 billion USD,
which roughly translates to INR 10 lakh crores! Currently, the main
contributors of this market include patients from the USA. Needless to say, with
Indian patients gradually realising the importance of how valuable their health-related
data is, the value of this market is only going to go up!”
But who would be willing to pay such a
crazy amount of money to obtain health-related data from patients? Ms Dimple
Arora, Data scientist and Co-founder, KYT answers: “Pharmaceutical companies
who are in the search of the next blockbuster drug are in need of real-world
healthcare data from Indian patients. With the realisation of the value of
real-world data for the development of new drugs and also for regulatory
purposes, pharmaceutical companies are in search for credible, well-generated
healthcare-related data, preferably voluntarily obtained from informed and
consenting patients. Using such health-related data, pharma companies would do
complex analytics and try to pick up signals which would help them undertake
clinical decision support, revenue cycle management, population health
management and value-based analytics.”
And who are the sellers? As with any other
item, the seller of the healthcare data is the one who owns it. But who owns
the healthcare data? Is it the doctors? Hospitals? Laboratory? According to Dr
Pawan Rane, MD, Oncologist, and Co-founder of KYT, the real owner of a
patient’s healthcare data is none other than the patient. While a patient is
hospitalised, the medical record is undoubtedly the hospital’s property; but
the healthcare data contained within those records is definitely owned by the
patient. And by extension, a patient can use this data to sell it to those who
would be willing to pay for it. This is exactly where healthcare data
marketplace comes into picture.
The two major concerns for any such
entities offering healthcare data marketplace are safety and trust. The KYT app
solves both of these problems by offering a secure way to upload and save
health-related data with a friendly user interface. Dr. Amit Dang clarifies:
“The KYT app provides provision to all patients to control the sharing of their
data, which means that their health data can only be used after they give their
due consent to do so. Dr. Pawan Rane further mentions that “To ensure confidentiality
of data and to prevent unwanted disclosure of sensitive data, we anonymize the
data before sharing it with any third party. That way, the buyers of the data –
pharmaceutical companies – would only receive the data, and not the identifying
details of the patients. This makes KYT app a secure and safe place to save
your health-related data and share it with potential buyers in return for a
suitable incentive.”
KYT also acts as a patient’s own healthcare
dairy which can be used to chronicle the health and medication history in a
secure manner. Ms Dimple Arora concludes: “In many Western countries, medical
records are digitalised: a concept called Electronic Health Record (EHR).
However, many hospitals in India continue to rely on paper records. Further, in
the West, health insurance companies maintain a valuable database of patient
health data. Such a database is unfortunately lacking in our country because of
poor penetration of health insurance in India. In this background, KYT is a
novel platform by which willing and consenting patients generate credible
electronic versions of their health data, with an additional advantage that this
data can also be shared in exchange for money.”
The KYT app is now available in Play Store
for free download. For more details visit https://thekyt.in/
