Know Healthcare 3 - Secondary Usage of Data

Secondary Usage of Data – In simple English it means using data for a purpose other than the purpose it was collected for. In healthcare it mostly refers to secondary use of EHR – Electronic health record.

Let’s say you visit a doctor for  general health check up, he collects you BP, Weight, heart rate etc. You get an analysis of the data say a week later giving you details of your health condition. This is the primary use of the data collected from you.

If the physician shares your data (with your consent) with an NGO which is looking for health related data from your county to know the effects of having 8 fast food restaurants around, it is the secondary usage of data.

In a more serious note  collecting and working on the secondary usage of data really helps hospitals, physicians, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals to be proactive rather than reactive to situations.

 More specifically it helps pharmaceuticals to know a lot about disease, symptoms and side effects ,which assists them to speed up the research and reduce the time spent on clinical trials.