How do people get better insights into their health, without going to the doctor right away? Daniel Diethei from the Allgäu has developed various solutions for this.
05/18/2022 | Starting at 15:07
A strange mole, but the appointment with the dermatologist is only in six months. Persistent headache, but no expert knows what to do. Many people are already turning to the Internet to find out about these types of problems. What doesn’t always provide the right solution could, if used correctly, solve problems in the health system, says researcher Daniel Diethei from Altusried. For his doctoral thesis, the 30-year-old investigated how digital health data can be used intelligently.
Reduce long wait times at the specialist with online applications or forums
How could data collection improve healthcare?
Daniel Dietei: On the one hand, people get information about their health. Fitness bracelets, for example, show how much a person is moving or if they have had enough sleep. In addition, some health issues could be clarified without a doctor’s appointment or patients with similar problems could exchange information online. In this way, long waiting times at specialist doctors are saved or do not arise in the first place.
Couldn’t sensitive data be misused in this way?
I dieted: In fact, my research has found that vendors don’t always label what they use what data for. For example, a corona data donation app was actually intended to identify fever and thus potential corona hotspots through movement profile and heart rate, but was later used to investigate the Effects of time change on people’s sleep. Providers need to act more responsibly here.
Positive example despite data concerns: App scans moles and thus recognizes signs of skin cancer
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How could such an application be?
I dieted: A positive example is liver spot scanning platforms. You take a photo, upload it to the app, and get an assessment of whether the mole shows signs of skin cancer. If this is the case, you can see a specialist. The goal of such offerings should be for people to be able to share their data securely and easily to gain access to digital healthcare and thus avoid bottlenecks in the healthcare system.
Daniel Diethei presenting his doctoral thesis at the University of Bremen.
Image: Diethei
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