The New World of Digital Health

In 2019, the French “health unicorn”, Doctolib – the largest digital health service in Europe – raised EUR150 million through funding, raising the company’s value to over a billion euros. Doctolib joined forces with the elite group of other online health services, such as Peloton and 23andMe, solidifying its place in both healthcare booking, and software provision. Once again, French tech is rising in Europe, showing that its talent, as well as its financial and legal systems, are ideal for health progress and efficiency. Currently, France is expanding on the foundational need for telemedicine as an essential tool in post-pandemic Europe – saving doctors time with administrative tasks, reducing missed appointments and increasing the amount of patients that are able to be cared for. While the world of digital health is quite new – and at times can seem threateningly powerful – there are many national regulations in place to ensure safety, confidentiality, and overall the promise of impactful medical assistance.

The legislation set forth by the European Union impacts the liability for injuries that are suffered through the product-use that digital health services provide, entailing that digital health services comply with the international standards of pharmaceutical regulation. This is done by the National Agency for Medicine and Health Products Safety (ANSM), whose power includes regulating the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, and investigation or inspection. Setting up bodies to monitor life science products placed on the market ensures the safety and compensation of victims, allowing the public to use digital health services without worry. These preventative measures extend to the requirement for life science companies to provide warning of side effects, as well as instructions, on sold or over-the-counter prescriptions. For pharmaceuticals directly prescribed by doctors, doctors may be held liable for medicine prescribed, and must assess patients based on a benefit/risk ratio.

In order for French tech to be able to properly provide its services to Europe’s world of digital health, innovative software that records and assesses personal health information is provided to digital health users. According to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), any data that concerns health is considered sensitive data and the processing of such data is prohibited, unless it is necessary for reasons of public interest – developments in exactly what qualifies as a public interest reason is something all digital health organisations are obliged to follow very closely.

Generally, digital health providers are required to protect themselves as well, enforcing typical waivers of liability upon the patients that use their services, especially in cases in which patients may refuse to follow the medical advice provided by the physicians and hospitals. It is through these regulations that both patients, and providers, are protected – and it is what keeps digital health services at the forefront of practical assistance in the medical field. With the legislation in place, both provider and patient can be sure that there is a safe and protected relationship between the two, furthering the medical field for the better.

Since the relationship of safety has been established in the world of digital health, it is important to understand the need for digital health, in order to expand the world of medicine as a whole. Connected medical devices have completely altered the way in which both doctors and researchers are able to use patient data in order to capture medically relevant information, to further research cures, and to allow pharmaceutical development. Patents play a large role in this allowance, as technology adoption furthers the delivery of efficient healthcare services such as wearable devices to monitor accurate data in real time. These wearable devices connect the technological world of intellectual property with the medical need to monitor disabilities and detect chronic disease as well – invaluable aspects of the modern medical world. Furthermore, the protection of these intellectual property rights goes beyond simply backing up the digital health companies, but in fact secures the protection of the rights of the individuals using the services as well. It is in this notion that the combination of digital health technology within the medical world serves a purpose that is both beyond expectations, yet was also an inevitable destination.

The world of digital health has surpassed the expectations of prior decades – it continues to allow the furtherance of medical discoveries; and to save lives. In using the data set forth by patients, digital health companies can deliver a current reality of furthered research and better healthcare, and promise a future of endless possibilities for medical discovery. With both the companies and the patients being protected by the litigation of the European Union, digital health companies are the safe and secure future of medicine.