Cooperating on Data: The Missing Element in Bringing Real Innovation to Europe's Healthcare Systems

Patient and Public Willingness to Share Personal Health Data for Third-Party or Secondary Uses: Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

International advances in information communication, eHealth, and other digital health technologies have led to significant expansions in the collection and analysis of personal health data. However, following a series of high-profile data sharing scandals and the emergence of COVID-19, critical exploration of public willingness to share personal health data remains limited, particularly for third-party or secondary uses.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review aims to explore factors that affect public willingness to share personal health data for third-party or secondary uses.

METHODS

A systematic search of 6 databases (MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scopus, and SocINDEX) was conducted with review findings analyzed using inductive-thematic analysis and synthesized using a narrative approach.

RESULTS

Of the 13,949 papers identified, 135 were included. Factors most commonly identified as a barrier to data sharing from a public perspective included data privacy, security, and management concerns. Other factors found to influence willingness to share personal health data included the type of data being collected (ie, perceived sensitivity); the type of user requesting their data to be shared, including their perceived motivation, profit prioritization, and ability to directly impact patient care; trust in the data user, as well as in associated processes, often established through individual choice and control over what data are shared with whom, when, and for how long, supported by appropriate models of dynamic consent; the presence of a feedback loop; and clearly articulated benefits or issue relevance including valued incentivization and compensation at both an individual and collective or societal level.

CONCLUSIONS

There is general, yet conditional public support for sharing personal health data for third-party or secondary use. Clarity, transparency, and individual control over who has access to what data, when, and for how long are widely regarded as essential prerequisites for public data sharing support. Individual levels of control and choice need to operate within the auspices of assured data privacy and security processes, underpinned by dynamic and responsive models of consent that prioritize individual or collective benefits over and above commercial gain. Failure to understand, design, and refine data sharing approaches in response to changeable patient preferences will only jeopardize the tangible benefits of data sharing practices being fully realized.

Understanding communication between patients and healthcare professionals regarding comprehensive biomarker testing in precision oncology: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

Precision oncology, using comprehensive biomarker testing (cBT) to inform individual cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, includes increasingly complex technology and clinical data sets. People impacted by cancer (patients and caregivers) and healthcare professionals (HCPs) face distinct challenges in navigating the cBT and personalized treatment landscape. This review summarizes evidence regarding cBT-related communication between people impacted by cancer and HCPs and identifies important avenues for future research in precision oncology.

METHODS

A scoping review was conducted using records published in PubMed during January 2017-August 2022, focusing on the breadth of topics on patient-HCP communication and knowledge resources used by HCPs as guidance in cBT-related communication. Data were extracted from records meeting inclusion criteria, and findings were summarized according to main topics.

RESULTS

The search identified 287 unique records and data were extracted from 42 records, including nine from expert input. Most records originated from the United States included patients with different types of cancer, and oncologists were the main HCPs. Patients' motivation for undergoing cBT and receiving results was generally high in different settings. However, patients' understanding of cBT-related concepts was limited, and their knowledge and information preferences changed based on cBT implications and significance to family members. HCPs were valued by patients as a trusted source of information. Limited evidence was available on HCPs' information-seeking behavior and factors influencing cBT-related knowledge and confidence, often self-reported as insufficient.

CONCLUSIONS

Patient education by knowledgeable and confident HCPs, information management and a caring patient-HCP relationship communicating continuity of care regardless of cBT results are crucial to empower patients and shared decision-making in precision oncology. More data on the process and structure of cBT-related communication, distinction between and characterization of different timepoints of patient-HCP interactions are needed.

Clouds across the new dawn for clinical, diagnostic and biological data: accelerating the development, delivery and uptake of personalized medicine

Growing awareness of the genetic basis of disease is transforming the opportunities for improving patient care by accelerating the development, delivery and uptake of personalised medicine and diseases diagnostics. This can mean more precise treatments reaching the right patients at the right time at the right cost. But it will be possible only with a coherent European Union (EU) approach to regulation. For clinical and biological data, on which the EU is now legislating with its planned European Health Data Space (EHDS), it is crucial that the design of this new system respects the constraints also implicit in the testing which generates data. The current EHDS proposal may fail to meet this requirement. It risks being over-ambitious, while taking insufficient account of the demanding realities of data access in daily practice and current economics/business models. It is marred by imprecision and ambiguity, by overlaps with other EU legislation, and by lack of clarity on funding. This paper identifies key issues where legislators should ensure that the opportunities are not squandered by the adoption of over-hasty or ill-considered provisions that jeopardise the gains that could be made in improved healthcare.

Data saves lives: optimising routinely collected clinical data for rare disease research

Necessity driven organisational change in the post-pandemic landscape has seen health care providers adopting innovations to manage and process health data. These include the use of 'real-world' datasets of routinely collected clinical information, enabling data-driven delivery. Rare disease risks being 'left-behind' unless our clinical and research communities engage with the challenges and opportunities afforded by the burgeoning field of health data informatics. We address the challenges to the meaningful use and reuse of rare disease data, and, through a series of recommendations around workforce education, harmonisation of taxonomy, and ensuring an inclusive health data environment, we highlight the role that those who manage rare disease must play in addressing them.

European Health Data Space—An Opportunity Now to Grasp the Future of Data-Driven Healthcare

The May 2022 proposal from the European commission for a ‘European health data space’ envisages advantages for health from exploiting the growing mass of health data in Europe. However, key stakeholders have identified aspects that demand clarification to ensure success. Data will need to be freed from traditional silos to flow more easily and to cross artificial borders. Wide engagement will be necessary among healthcare professionals, researchers, and the patients and citizens that stand to gain the most but whose trust must be won if they are to allow use or transfer of their data. This paper aims to alert the wider scientific community to the impact the ongoing discussions among lawmakers will have. Based on the literature and the consensus findings of an expert multistakeholder panel organised by the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) in June 2022, it highlights the key issues at the intersection of science and policy, and the potential implications for health research for years, perhaps decades, to come.

Using ncRNAs as Tools in Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment-The Way towards Personalized Medicine to Improve Patients' Health

Although the first discovery of a non-coding RNA (ncRNA) dates back to 1958, only in recent years has the complexity of the transcriptome started to be elucidated. However, its components are still under investigation and their identification is one of the challenges that scientists are presently facing. In addition, their function is still far from being fully understood. The non-coding portion of the genome is indeed the largest, both quantitatively and qualitatively. A large fraction of these ncRNAs have a regulatory role either in coding mRNAs or in other ncRNAs, creating an intracellular network of crossed interactions (competing endogenous RNA networks, or ceRNET) that fine-tune the gene expression in both health and disease. The alteration of the equilibrium among such interactions can be enough to cause a transition from health to disease, but the opposite is equally true, leading to the possibility of intervening based on these mechanisms to cure human conditions. In this review, we summarize the present knowledge on these mechanisms, illustrating how they can be used for disease treatment, the current challenges and pitfalls, and the roles of environmental and lifestyle-related contributing factors, in addition to the ethical, legal, and social issues arising from their (improper) use.

Bringing Greater Accuracy to Europe's Healthcare Systems: The Unexploited Potential of Biomarker Testing in Oncology

Rapid and continuing advances in biomarker testing are not being matched by take-up in health systems, and this is hampering both patient care and innovation. It also risks costing health systems the opportunity to make their services more efficient and, over time, more economical. This paper sets out the potential of biomarker testing, the unfolding precision and range of possible diagnosis and prediction, and the many obstacles to adoption. It offers case studies of biomarker testing in breast, ovarian, prostate, lung, thyroid and colon cancers, and derives specific lessons as to the potential and actual use of each of them. It also draws lessons about how to improve access and alignment, and to remedy the data deficiencies that impede development. And it suggests solutions to outstanding issues - notably including funding and the tangled web of obtaining reimbursement or equivalent coverage that Europe's fragmented health system implies. It urges a European evolution towards an initial minimum testing scenario, which would guarantee universal access to a suite of biomarker tests for the currently most common conditions, and, further into the future, to an optimum testing scenario in which a much wider range of biomarker tests would be introduced and become part of a more sophisticated health system articulated around personalised medicine. For exploiting genomics to the full, it argues the need for a new policy framework for Europe. Biomarker testing is not an issue that can be treated in isolation, since the purpose of testing is to improve health. Its use is therefore always closely linked to specific health challenges and needs to be viewed in the broader policy context in the EU and more widely. The paper is the result of extensive engagement with experts and decision makers to develop the framework, and consequently represents a wide consensus of views on how healthcare systems should respond from push and pull factors at local, national and cross-border and EU level. It contains strong views and clear recommendations springing from the convictions of patients, clinicians, academics, medicines authorities, HTA bodies, payers, the diagnostic, pharmaceutical and ICT industries, and national policy makers.

Propelling Health Care into the Twenties

The scope and potential of personalised health care are underappreciated and underrealised, often because of resistance to change. The consequence is that many inadequacies of health care in Europe persist unnecessarily, and many opportunities for improvement are neglected. This article identifies the principal challenges, outlines possible approaches to resolving them, and highlights the benefits that could result from greater adoption of personalised health care. It locates the discussion in the context of European policy, focusing particularly on the most recent and authoritative reviews of health care in the EU Member States, and on the newly acquired spirit of readiness and pragmatism among European officials to embrace change and innovative technologies in a new decade. It highlights the attention now being given by policymakers to incentives, innovation, and investment as levers to improve European citizens' prospects in a rapidly evolving world, and how these distinct and disruptive themes contribute to a renaissance in thinking about delivering optimal health care in Europe. It explores the chances offered to patients by specific initiatives in health domains such as cancer and antimicrobial resistance, and by innovative science, novel therapies, earlier diagnosis tools, and deeper understanding of health promotion and prevention. And it reflects on how health care providers could benefit from a shift towards better primary care and towards deploying health data more effectively, including the use of artificial intelligence, coupled with a move to a smoother organisational/regulatory structure and realigned professional responsibilities. The conclusion is that preparing Europe's health care systems for the inevitable strains of the coming years is both possible and necessary. A more courageous approach to embracing personalised health care could guarantee the sustainability of Europe's health care systems before rising demands and exponential costs overwhelm them - an exercise in future-proofing, in ensuring that they are equipped to withstand whatever lies ahead. A focus on the potential and implementation of personalised care would permit more efficient use of resources and deliver better quality health-preserving care.