In order for AI to become more effective at improving patient and population health, larger health data pools are needed to train AI models.
Moreover, these data pools enable providers and payers to share data. Today, I’m writing about the innovation and competition needed to create these health data pools, coupled with antitrust concerns that could slow their creation.
AI algorithms churn through vast amounts of your personal data to optimize your feed on platforms like Facebook, Netflix, LinkedIn, and X. Yet when you go to the doctor or the hospital, where is the AI algorithm to address your health care needs today and to predict and prevent your health care needs for tomorrow?
Relative to Big Tech’s platforms, AI is less-widely used in health care.
So why is health care’s use of AI so far behind use with Big Tech?
The problem is that health care data is scattered across physician offices, hospitals, imaging centers, labs, pharmacies, PBMs and payers that are subject to HIPAA requirements for privacy and confidentiality (see Summit’s Healthcare Interaction Map).
The potential upside to fix this problem is large. In January, McKinsey released their fourth annual study projecting profits across health care, projecting some of the highest returns for software and platforms coupled with data analytics.
Big tech is moving into health care because health care data can influence expenditures for one-sixth of the US economy.
Venture capital is also fueling startups entering this space, investing $10 billion last year.
And, a recent study of hospitals from Health Affairs found larger hospital systems were more likely to use AI models to predict patient health trajectories and identify high-risk patients.
While these investments have the potential to improve patient health and lower costs, that potential rests on markets, regulations, and antitrust enforcement working well because these data pools could become bottlenecks that extract monopoly profits while not improving patient and population health to its full potential.
An antitrust lawsuit argues this is already occurring. But before discussing the lawsuit, we must ask: Who even owns EHR data, how is it integrated with other health care data, and how is it shared with key stakeholders?
