In the Global South, the challenge for policymakers, is to strike the right balance between healthcare systems’ reforms, law enforcement, and preservation of patient rights. To protect patients’ data security and confidentiality, intricate collaborations among all stakeholders involved in the governance and exploitation of the Internet, nationally and internationally, are required. Cybersecurity should neither compromise digital sovereignty nor hinder the transformative potential of the health sector through technology or equity of participation of the global south in the global digital research and economy.
One of the promises of technology has been to take healthcare beyond the walls of medical centers and transform it into an open modular network. By doing so, healthcare could not only become more cost-effective and profitable in the long run but also help reduce bottlenecks, waiting times, and reliance on health institutions, especially where healthcare workers are scarce.
The key element of this open system lies in access to patients’ health data that can be used, reused, and shared to facilitate the personalized coordination of patient care among different healthcare professionals as well as other private sector entities such as insurance companies, pharmaceutical industries, or any other entity wishing to carry out a research project of general interest.
However, to build open platforms, it is first necessary to develop a common infrastructure that allows coordination and interoperability across the entire healthcare system: an infrastructure that integrates medical-administrative data and all forms of medical data, in the spirit of promoting research, data sharing, and communication between different institutions to gain agility.
For instance, Electronic Health Record present the greatest initial opportunity for a broad foothold of artificial intelligence into the medical administrative processes of healthcare. This so-called infrastructure comes yet at a cost, as health data volumes are expected to grow exponentially over time.
Moreover, there are issues related to data privacy, data security and digital sovereignty of states. In this context, governments of the global south have an obligation to establish appropriate rules for the use of patients' personal data as applicable.
Failing to do so would be a serious dereliction of their responsibilities. Therefore, cybersecurity budgets in public and private healthcare institutions should significantly increase, and new technologies should be acquired to keep healthcare organizations safe from attacks and secure their information networks. In 2016, the African Union Commission released a report revealing that out of the 54 African countries, 30 lacked specific legal provisions to combat cybercrime.
However, any law, when adopted, only regulates two aspects: data access and the conditions under which data is transmitted.
Yet, Cybercrime cannot be defeated by a single law. It necessitates collaboration among all stakeholders involved in the governance and exploitation of the Internet to protect data security and confidentiality. Without proper privacy protections, citizens would remain reluctant to the collection of health data. Thus, the challenge for policymakers is to strike the right balance between healthcare system reforms, law enforcement, and the preservation of patient rights.
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a good model of comprehensive regulation that gives individuals more control over their personal data and could serve as a starting point for emerging countries like Morocco to secure their cyberspaces while pursuing healthcare system reforms. Policymakers should also conduct a transparent inventory of the currently used medical technologies and guidelines for their deployment.
Companies developing digital health technologies must demonstrate not only that these technologies would not be compromised but also that they are free of vulnerabilities. Technologies with vulnerabilities and defects should not be adopted.
Furthermore, global collaborations should provide a clear understanding of future risks and vulnerabilities of smart technologies. Above all, for countries of the Global South, cybersecurity-related issues should neither compromise digital sovereignty nor hinder the transformative potential the health sector through technology or equity of their participation in the global digital research and economy.
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* Dr. Kaouthar Lbiati serves on the boards of public companies in North America and advises biotech companies on financing strategies, investments, business growth, and mergers and acquisitions. In this article, she shares her perspective as a contribution to the ongoing structural healthcare systems’ national reforms in Morocco, digital transformation, and health-technological entrepreneurship promotion.