Predictive analytics in health care

Emerging value and risks

As the health care industry begins to use new technologies such as predictive analytics, government health agencies, doctors, and primary health providers must be aware of risks and agree on standards.

Technology is playing an integral role in health care worldwide as predictive analytics has become increasingly useful in operational management, personal medicine, and epidemiology. This article will delve into the benefits for predictive analytics in the health sector, the possible biases inherent in developing algorithms (as well as logic), and the new sources of risks emerging due to a lack of industry assurance and absence of clear regulations.

Health care has a long track record of evidence-based clinical practice and ethical standards in research. However, the extension of this into new technologies such as the use of predictive analytics, the algorithms behind them, and the point where a machine process should be replaced by a human mental process is not clearly regulated or controlled by industry standards. Government health agencies, doctors, and primary health givers need to be aware of the risks emerging and agree on levels of assurance as society continues to move into a new era of decision-making supplemented, and at times replaced, by evidence from digital technologies. More specifically, this paper will look at the various ethical issues and moral hazards that need to be navigated following the adoption and use of predictive analytics in the health care sector with an emphasis on accountable algorithms.

Read Deloitte’s full report here.