Healthcare Costs in the US, Digital Health Law, Skeptical Overview of AI and a Public Health Initiatives in Africa and Malaysia
This is what was covered in April.
Hi there!
When you’re 20, feeling invincible and eager to travel the world, you don’t usually worry about health insurance. I had to, because I’m a chronic patient. I created the Faces of digital health podcast years ago out of my own curiosity about healthcare systems around the world. What if I wanted to move to a different country? Would healthcare there be affordable for me?
Faces of digital health podcast steers away from American-centricity in reporting about digital health. The content gives policymakers, healthcare experts, patients, and entrepreneurs an insight into how healthcare systems around the world adopt technology and what problems innovators from different cultures are trying to solve. Diversity and different perspectives can only enrich ideas for the problem-solving of healthcare.
Are you ready to travel?
Tjasa
April featured speakers from Tanzania, Germany (working in Malaysia), Australia and the USA. Here’s what was covered.
F126 How is Tradition Hindering Health Literacy in Kenya, Tanzania and Malaysia?
In developing countries, explanations for health problems or general human biology can be heavily influenced by traditional beliefs. Some communities still believe that during their period, women are cleansing of evil spirits or that if twins are born, that is a bad omen. The solution to these misconceptions is education. But to provide it, health education companies face infrastructure challenges and technology affordability issues.
F127 Why Do People Go Bankrupt Due To Medical Costs In The US?
Part of the reason for the high costs of healthcare in the US is that the healthcare costs structure that has shifted towards patients, says Ric Sinclair, the Chief Strategy and Product Officer of Waystar. “What happened in the United States over the last plus or minus 30 years was that processes were built based on a system and a payment system in the 80s and 90s. Initially, healthcare providers and insurance companies were exchanging funds between each other. Patients carried a very low portion of the financial responsibility. Now 30 to 40% of the overall cost structure is shifting to patients,” says Ric Sinclair.
What can you do?
F128 What Are We Missing About AI Development in Healthcare?
AI has huge potentials to do good, but we’re not quite there yet, says Casey Ross - STAT News investigative reported, focused on AI development in healthcare.
Casey Ross among other projects embarked on a several months-long digging into data reported in hundreds of pages of documents filed with the FDA over the last six years by companies that ultimately gained the approval of products that rely on AI. Of 161 AI products cleared by the FDA between 2012 and 2020, only 73 disclosed the amount of patient data used to validate the performance of their devices in public documents. Among those that did, the numbers varied widely, from data on fewer than 100 patients to more than 15,000. Only seven reported the racial makeup of their study populations, and just 13 provided a gender breakdown.
The potential of AI is, in theory, huge. However, this is not a free technology and another open question is, will its use bring down costs or just increase healthcare expenditure. Looking at history, the latter is not impossible.
F129 What Is The State of Digital Health Law?
Bianca Rose Phillips is a Global Digital Health Law theorist from Australia and a Digital Health Think Tank founder. In her legal work, she is focused mostly on Australia and the USA. Many people know her by her framework of the so-called 8 pillars of digital health lawmaking.
Eight pillars include accountability of lawmakers for the reasons for their decisions, human rights, clinical benefit, societal benefit, harm reduction, risk reduction, business case, and public consultation.
"The eight pillars framework is a suggested values framework for digital health. As people, we know it's important that we understand our value system. Companies in digital health have a vision of what they want to achieve and accomplish. What I'm challenging organizations to do is to consider the values that keep digital health standing. If digital health was a house, the pillars beneath it need to be strong, and we want to keep the house standing. And you need to consider what happens when there is a conflict between two values," says Bianca Rose Phillips.
When you start considering digital health innovation from a legal standpoint, it becomes quite a thought experiment.