The Healthcare Ecosystem
Perhaps more so than any other market, health care operates in a true ecosystem. The current health care system consists of multiple, independent entities, each governed by separate laws, regulations, and business missions. However, all share a common commitment to see that appropriate health care is provided.
Despite this commonality, each organization’s charter mandates responsibility for a distinct portion of the overall health care process. These differing responsibilities, as well as the pressures of the competitive market, at times create objectives and agendas that appear to be in conflict with each other, causing delays, inefficiencies and even errors in delivering health care services to patients.
Still, it makes sense that these individual yet dependent entities would want to share information and manage processes between partner organizations.
The problem is that everyone’s health history is a very personal, private story. A critical legal and regulatory barrier to sharing a patient’s personal health information among health care ecosystem participants is HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The privacy provisions of HIPAA impose stiff penalties on those who share a patient’s personal health information without the patient’s consent to do so. DigitalBridge’s health care solutions address this important requirement of HIPAA.
