The possibility that my clinical data are only one click away so that, when I am in front of a health professional, the latter, as long as he has a computer at hand, access to the Internet and my authorization, can immediately access all my health history since my birth, It will be something extraordinary!
Good information about consultations, examinations, hospitalizations and all my interactions with the health system, whether they took place yesterday or ten, twenty or thirty years ago, in public, private or social sector entities, in any part of the country or even abroad, especially in Europe. A record of everything related to health that concerns me that is stored electronically, ie: the electronic health record (EHR).
It is a dream about to come true and, above all, it would be nice to see it, a significant contribution to improving the quality and sustainability of care.
It is a wealth of information available to those who, often in very short periods of time, have to make decisions of the utmost importance to each and every one of us.
It is also a critical step in realizing the ambition, much publicized, but little reality, to put the patient and the citizen at the center of the health system.
There are still some small issues associated with some bad words like data integrity or system interoperability, which are outdated and outdated, but the biggest difficulties are really about other bad words like RGPD and privacy.
And having come here, we have to ask whether a certain normative dictatorship, whose intentions are the best and noblest, is not in fact the superimposition of the individual over the collective.
Since this is not the appropriate place for a technical discussion of these matters, I think, however, that it is important to remember that in terms of issues related to privacy and data protection, every single one of us, a citizen, has been patient or plays or could play a major role here and opens up the solution. .
From the outset, inform yourself, discuss and take a stand on this topic.
But much more important is the potential that all this vast amount of data holds as a valuable tool for science and for designing new and innovative strategies for managing health resources. Arranged in so-called data lakes, this data can, in infinite combinations and (re)uses, be an inexhaustible source of knowledge that will allow us to respond to the growing challenges that health poses to us, namely those related to ensuring the sustainability of its organizational models.
Portugal has good conditions, in this way, to differentiate itself and assert itself in the global landscape of health innovation, with very positive consequences that will lead to our collective well-being. It is enough, for this, to desire it!
* Executive Director of the Health Group in Portugal
