BUDAPEST/WARSAW: Eastern Europe is a new frontier for private medical care, and insurers and tech startups are racing to steal a march on their rivals by harnessing the region's health data.
To that end, many insurers are teaming up with technology companies such as Polish startup Infermedica, whose software analyzes anonymized health information to provide preliminary diagnoses. Executives say a scarcity of data can make it difficult, or unwise, to identify trends and complicates the pricing of risk. They stress that it could take several years before investments in data collection and analysis pay off, although they declined to disclose spending figures, citing commercial sensitivity.
In an illustration of the thinking of big insurers, Hevesi said Generali had struck a big health insurance deal with a large employer which could end up being loss-making, but it was willing to take the risk to build up its trove of patient data in the emerging Hungarian market. However the risks of handling sensitive health information were illustrated in October when Hungary's National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition was hacked, with the data of thousands of patients leaked from pharmacies and drug wholesalers.
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