BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation, has published a paper about digital health in which it identifies principles and recommendations to ensure digital health services are beneficial for European consumers.
Health and healthcare services are rapidly changing due to new technologies. Traditional health is becoming digital. Consumers will be profoundly impacted by the ongoing and future developments in healthcare services. On the positive side, digitalisation of health care has a potential to deliver better disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
However, the benefits of digital health products and services come together with high risks when it comes to consumer privacy, security and safety.
Among other things, BEUC calls for:
- Consumers to have full control over their personal health data
- Digital health products and services to be safe and reliable to use
- Authorities to closely supervise digital health products and services
BEUC also specifically calls for all-inclusive solutions. Consumers have different needs, capacities, values and goals when it comes to use of digital health. BEUC insists that digital health solutions must correspond to the variety of users’ preferences, also respecting a preference not to use a digital health product or service.
To access the BEUC digital health paper and its full list of principles and recommendations, click here.