Cross-platform data sharing generates better services

The breadcrumbs of data we leave behind when using free apps or wearables that monitor our daily activity and exercise are collected and used to provide us with personalized advertisements or services.

However, the services could be made even better if some data were cross-platform shared between different service providers.

On a daily, even hourly, basis different service providers collect information about their clients, and analyze the data to determine customer habits, who they are, what they like and what they are interested in. The volume of data collected is immense and – if stored wisely – can be extremely valuable for businesses.

The problem is that they only have the information they accumulate themselves. This means that the personalized services they build may only go half way. However, if they had data from different sources and sectors instead of being stuck in a specific context or service, companies could create even more value and use data in an even more beneficial way. 

If individuals gave access and consent to sharing their own wellness data or eating habits with other services that are able to propose increased value in return for the data, everyone in the market would have a better idea of their customer and could therefore offer even better services. This would be a win-win situation for all, except those companies that are not able to propose increased value for their customers in return for more data.

The benefits of the free flow of data are easy to imagine, acutely so in the healthcare sector, which is actively looking for new ways to offer more preventive, predictive and personalised care for its customers. When moving from organization-centered data management to human-centered personal data management, individuals could share their data with their chosen healthcare provider via a data management service, and healthcare providers could have access to relevant and validated data when needed. 

This would result in more efficient, preventive and proactive healthcare, not to mention the new business opportunities that would arise. This would also result in new, innovative services, as it would be easier for smaller companies to enter the market due to being able to access data that were previously out of reach.

Connected healthcare is about bringing different stakeholders together and providing preventive, integrated and individual-centred healthcare in a precise manner that is designed around the individual’s needs based on the data collected by the individual and health service provider and through sharing information in the ecosystem. 

Empowering individuals and increasing their ability to control who can have access to the data and use it for creating value for the individual would not only increase individuals’ motivation and opportunity to take care of their health; it would also save the healthcare system enormous amounts of resources.

However, it is likely that before the sharing of data will become mainstream as a totally normal step in a service experience, new ecosystemic business models, collaboration and a value-based approach are needed from companies in order to create the first personal data-powered personalised services that will pave the way for the creation of the new data market.