Your Doctor Knows You're Killing Yourself. The Data Brokers Told Her

finance.yahoo.com ^ | Shannon Pettypiece and Jordan Robertson

[BenLurkin]

Information compiled by data brokers from public records and credit card transactions can reveal where a person shops, the food they buy, and whether they smoke. The largest hospital chain in the Carolinas is plugging data for 2 million people into algorithms designed to identify high-risk patients, while Pennsylvania's biggest system uses household and demographic data. Patients and their advocates, meanwhile, say they're concerned that big data's expansion into medical care will hurt the doctor-patient relationship and threaten privacy.

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Much of the information on consumer spending may seem irrelevant for a hospital or doctor, but it can provide a bigger picture beyond the brief glimpse that doctors get during an office visit or through lab results, said Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes at Carolinas HealthCare System.

Carolinas HealthCare System operates the largest group of medical centers in North Carolina and South Carolina, with more than 900 care centers, including hospitals, nursing homes, doctors' offices and surgical centers. The health system is placing its data, which include purchases a patient has made using a credit card or store loyalty card, into predictive models that give a risk score to patients.

Within the next two years, Dulin plans for that score to be regularly passed to doctors and nurses who can reach out to high-risk patients to suggest interventions before patients fall ill.

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If the early steps are successful, though, Dulin said he would like to renegotiate to get the data provider to share more specific details on patient spending with doctors.

"The data is already used to market to people to get them to do things that might not always be in the best interest of the consumer, we are looking to apply this for something good," Dulin said.

[Mouton]

OCARE DOC: I see here you bought 100 rds of 22 ammo last year, so you own dangerous guns, and I know you have children at home. So, I notified the ATF to raid your home today and see if you have unsecurred ammo or guns on the premises.

Patient: Gulp.

[Texas resident]

I use cash where ever I can. Got our house painted a couple of years ago and the painter knocked $500 off the job for paying him cash. He paid his guys right there on the spot. They did a good job also.

My grandfather was a country MD back in the last democrat caused depression. He got paid for delivering a farmers baby with vegetables and two goats. He got a new suit for setting a broken leg. From what he told me, there was a lot of that going on back then.