The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and HealthEx today announced a strategic collaboration aimed at developing tools for streamlining the patient consent process while also creating more transparency and control for patients in how their data is used.
As part of this collaboration, MD Anderson and HealthEx will work together for continued development and future implementation of HealthEx’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven global consent and data rights management platform to enable fast, compliant and patient-centric data access. Building on complementary strengths, this collaboration furthers MD Anderson’s thoughtful approach to enabling data-driven advances while simultaneously providing proper stewardship of patient data.
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“Patients understand the value their data has to researchers working to end cancer, but they also want and deserve to know how their data is used and who is using it,” said David Jaffray, Ph.D., chief technology and digital officer at MD Anderson. “Through this collaboration, we are co-creating new approaches to simplify the consent process so patients can make more informed decisions about their data than is possible using existing technology. This collaboration is an example of how we are taking a progressive approach to creating a health data ecosystem that is grounded in both transparency and accountability.”
Health care institutions like MD Anderson generate vast amounts of data through routine patient care, but several factors often prevent the data from being fully utilized by researchers and other trusted ecosystem partners. One significant hurdle is the complex patient consent process that can not only burden patients with lengthy forms but can also create labor-intensive workflow challenges for health care institutions. Further, increasing transparency in current systems could enable patients to better see and understand how their data is contributing to scientific progress.
“MD Anderson and HealthEx strive to pioneer a patient-centric, transparent and AI-augmented model for health data management,” said Priyanka Agarwal, M.D., MBA, co-founder and chief executive officer at HealthEx. “Our vision is to change how data serves both patients and health care institutions. By transforming consent and data access policies, we can maximize the value of health data, strengthen patient trust and improve health care for everyone.”
HealthEx’s platform utilizes AI to help organizations create, curate and enforce patient consents and preferences. The platform’s data policy engine also creates automated workflows to ensure compliance with patient preferences and institutional policies. Finally, the technology is targeted at allowing patients to control how they contribute their data to ongoing and future research that may improve outcomes for patients to come. Working together, HealthEx and MD Anderson will evaluate methods that leverage this platform to streamline future consenting approaches, benefiting patients while also enabling impactful cancer research.
