> It is rather surprising that it is common for resellers to block patient facing view
Is it though?
To be clear I'm all for letting patients get access to their own data and think it should be required, but I totally understand why companies would limit their liability by locking consumers out of their own data.
Patients are notoriously bad at interpreting their own data and test results. That last thing you want are patients changing their own treatment because the misinterpret their own data and then blame the device.
I primarily get medical care through Mercy, a large health system in the Midwestern U.S. I can see test results immediately through their online portal. At the top is this statement:
"We believe you have the right to see your results as soon as they’re available. However, this means you may see results before your provider does. In some cases, results can be serious or hard to understand. If this concerns you, you may want to wait a few days to hear from your provider or, after waiting, message your provider."
I have no problem with that and thing it is a great thing.
If I want, I can get access to all sorts of things from my medical provider that I’m not qualified to interpret.
Just by connecting Apple Health to my health care system, I can see every lab result, most of which I’m not qualified to interpret.
My brother had a CT scan, and upon request, got a DVD with the scan data and a viewer for that data.
If my healthcare provider prevented me from seeing this info, I’d find another provider.
Getting back to the core question: is it surprising?
I don’t think it’d be surprising in the consumer or enterprise spaces where lock-in is a feature. But I don’t think that automatically extends to healthcare, where such restrictions are extremely problematic, and threaten my ability to get care from my provider of choice.
(And to clarify, I don’t think this is good or acceptable for consumer/enterprise products either, but the implications there are different, where I might just choose another vendor - a choice I might not have for medical devices).
This seems like an American-centric view. I've heard in some other countries, patients have full control over their medical records, they take the records with them from doctor to doctor.
Last thing I want is this completely insane liability system we have that somehow puts the responsibility for a person misinterpreting data on the data provider.
Is it though?
To be clear I'm all for letting patients get access to their own data and think it should be required, but I totally understand why companies would limit their liability by locking consumers out of their own data.
Patients are notoriously bad at interpreting their own data and test results. That last thing you want are patients changing their own treatment because the misinterpret their own data and then blame the device.