Last Saturday I was at Culturgest discussing Big Data and Medicine with Joana Sá (NOVA SBE), Elsa Cardoso (ISCTE) in a session organised by Davide Scarso and moderated by Hugo Almeida, both from the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia.
While the panel covered different topics – potentials and pitfalls, what I found remarkable was a small but participative audiente very worried about their privacy, focusing on what could go wrong, but not apparently interested on everything that is becoming better through the use of Big Data and AI in Healthcare. While I agree that there are pitfalls and that we should, we must(!) prepare to minimize these “side effects”, we must do more to make people aware of all the potential opportunities for each person and for healthcare in general.
Interestingly, insurance companies are perceived as a major, if not the biggest threat faced by individuals in this new reality. I believe that if insurance companies intend to remain in business they need to rethink their communication strategies as well as their value propositions. They are currently seen as part of the problem, a necessary evil that we must endure, but never as part of the solution.