Maximus recently contributed expertise and input to a new report from ACT-IAC’s Health Community of Interest (CoI) to support the work of the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us research program. The report, Digital Health Technologies in Federal Health Research, explores how digital health devices can improve data collection and research outcomes, a noted priority for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as it looks to launch a campaign encouraging Americans to use wearable health devices.
As Senior Director of the Maximus Customer Experience (CX) Accelerator, Cathy Muha, RN, MSN, contributed key clinical and CX expertise to the ACT-IAC report.
How is ACT-IAC and Maximus exploring digital technologies for health data collection? What are some of the key goals?
The ACT-IAC Health CoI is focused on initiatives with government and industry to improve health mission outcomes through collaboration, leadership, and educational offerings. Together, we are exploring technology to solve challenges in patient and population health outcomes where government can make a difference.
Through the use of digital technologies, health programs can collect high-quality data that can improve health outcomes, and several areas are particularly impactful. First is chronic disease—helping patients, families, and providers manage and monitor these illnesses and improve outcomes. The second area is mental healthcare. Symptom tracking tools can help therapists to do their job better and enable patients and individuals on a day-to-day basis. And finally, palliative care is a growing need with our aging population. Monitoring devices and technologies can maintain health for longer, and help people avoid hospitalization and manage symptoms from home.
“Through the use of digital technologies, health programs can collect high-quality data that can improve health outcomes, and several areas are particularly impactful, from chronic disease management and monitoring to symptom tracking and palliative care.” — Cathy Muha, RN, MSN, Senior Director, Maximus Customer Experience Accelerator
Success in these areas, of course, depends on the devices and the data. Estimates suggest that the amount of health data provided directly by patients will increase significantly in the coming years through devices like wearables, health portals, and apps. By advising on usability, interoperability, and regulatory compliance, we can ensure that digital health technologies used for federal data collection are both clinically valid and operationally feasible.
What attributes factor into how effective a digital health device will be for data collection and research efforts?
First, policy and regulatory considerations and device availability are key. Take a fitness watch, for example—considerations include how available it is to users, the cost, and how accessible it is. Connectivity and ease of use are also important factors we considered, so we looked at features like availability of Bluetooth connections and mobile usability.
We also looked at device performance and benchmarking as well as device data quality, volume, fidelity, and integrity. Cybersecurity factors are unique and crucial for health devices, including how patient data is entered, translated, stored, and transmitted.
All of these considerations lead to the most important factor: the device’s health impact. How does the technology ultimately improve health for patients, communities, the nation, and the world?
How can efforts like this study help health agencies achieve robust data collection while balancing security and privacy?
There is nothing more important than balancing data collection with trustworthy, ethical, and efficient practices. For digital technologies, comprehensive data governance frameworks that prioritize compliance with regulations including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are crucial.
These efforts include thorough encryption and access controls, regular risk assessments and audits, educating stakeholders on data stewardship, and ensuring devices have very clear and current consent processes. In our analysis, we evaluated many devices with pages of fine print that made it difficult for users to know what was happening with their data. So, these issues are important factors in device selection.
How did the contributors’ robust clinical expertise inform the technology evaluation and recommendations?
The Col placed a strong emphasis on clinical and health backgrounds for our study. About half of the contributors had very direct clinical experience as physicians and so forth, and the other half were health IT experts, health administrators, and business analysts in the health sector.
Having that clinical lens enabled us to conduct our analysis based on a true understanding of the patient journey—from early disease detection to prevention to diagnosis to clinical events and post-event follow-up. Clinicians working alongside technologists can develop devices that address not only physical but also mental and social health needs. For example, if a patient has just had a surgery, what social and mental health factors might impact their ability to follow at-home care instructions and attend follow-up appointments? We looked into what types of devices and tools can address those issues and help ensure patients follow post-surgery steps to improve their recovery. Having the clinical background to understand the patient at each step enabled us to evaluate digital technologies through the patient’s experience, which is so important.
What is next for ACT-IAC's Health COI and your collaboration with the group?
Really exciting things ahead! We're looking forward to doing webinars on the report in the coming months and next year. The CoI is also looking into deeper dives on implementation strategies, policy implications, and technology evaluation frameworks. That was an important part of the recent report, and I believe it will serve as a model for future reports the CoI is considering to support our government agency partners and their missions.