Data supply chain for cancer control and healthcare: motivation and principles

Amidst the rapid acceleration of data generation in today's digitally enabled healthcare systems, the anticipated benefits of data-driven healthcare are not being realised. This gap reflects the technical challenges of fragmented and poor-quality data, as well as the organisational and cultural shortcomings supporting how data are provisioned, managed and governed. In this article, we expand on the emerging concept of a 'data supply chain'-a system of systems that provisions and manages the demand for and supply of data that is reliable, timely and fulfils the needs of the data consumer. We examine this concept in the context of cancer control, which has implications for healthcare and the context of broader societal trends, including the emergence of a global 'data economy' and the data demands associated with artificial intelligence. The foundations of this paradigm are set upon underlying principles that leverage the maintenance and diligent management of metadata to allow the complex network of data supply chains informing complex health-related decisions, such as achieving cancer control, to be scalable and meaningfully connected and traceable. We conclude by outlining the broader sociotechnological implications of adopting the data supply chain paradigm and identify it as a critical capability in addressing cancer control and strengthening health systems more broadly.