Get Social Health welcomes Digital Health Futurist Fard Johnmar as a guest blogger. We were pleased to have him as a guest on the podcast (Episode 10) and could not cover everything we wanted to discuss, particularly on the launch of his new program, Digital Health Illustrated. Congratulations to Fard and team on this new program. I know you’ll be interested in reading about it.

~ Janet Kennedy

Earlier this year, health consumers, physicians, and others roundly criticized a program backed by the National Health Service to collect and centralize health data gathered by general practitioners from millions of patients across England. They were especially concerned that creating a centralized database of health records could put patients’ privacy at risk.

Are their concerns misplaced? Although data stewards take great care to secure electronic medical records, data breaches are common. In addition, we are collecting increasing amounts of sensitive health data from social media, mobile phones and now, wearable computers. Cybersecurity experts, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine and other publications warn that the health industry is woefully behind other sectors in terms of data security best practices.

In this installment of my new video blog series, Digital Health Illustrated, I focus on the dark side of the health data explosion and highlight consumers’ concerns about health data privacy and security. Click the image below to view.

Fard Johnmar is a digital health futurist and researcher focused on understanding how digital health technologies are used and perceived. He is also co-author of the global bestseller ePatient 2015: 15 Surprising Trends Changing Health Care.