Enabling secure and self determined health data sharing and consent management

Area of Science:

• Digital health
• Health informatics
• Data privacy

Background:

• Digital health tools generate substantial sensitive patient data from clinical settings, apps, and wearables.
• Effective consent management is crucial for building patient trust and increasing willingness to share health data.
• Current systems often lack robust mechanisms for tracking consent and data utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel conceptual framework for digital health consent management.
• To explore the integration of emerging technologies for enhanced consent tracking and data utilization.
• To balance data access needs with patient privacy concerns to promote data sharing in healthcare.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual framework development.
• Review of relevant technologies including blockchain, self-sovereign identity, and de-identified tokens.
• Analysis of integration strategies for a consent management system.

Main Results:

• A conceptual framework is proposed for managing consent in digital health.
• Integration of blockchain, self-sovereign identity, and de-identified tokens offers a viable approach.
• The framework aims to provide transparent tracking of consent and data utilization.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework can enhance trust and encourage data sharing in digital health.
• Balancing data access and privacy is achievable through technological integration.
• This approach has the potential to improve healthcare outcomes through responsible data utilization.