In order to provide data-based decisions the e-Health systems serve health providers and insurance companies to improve their services. Although e-Health services are meant to provide virtual healthcare, they are mainly concerned to manage patient data, decrease costs, and provide organizational improvements. In contrast to the perspective of health care system, the “Navigating Knowledge Landscapes” interdisciplinary network is concerned by individual perspective of patients or any health-concerned citizen, i.e. how to navigate toward health, in particular in the digital environment.
Although it could be assumed that the interests of patients and health care systems are identical – providing health care to those in need, there are as well substantial discrepancies between these two sides. The major difference to be highlighted is the data vs. knowledge conflict. In sense of knowledge, health care system is the master of the knowledge. The medical professionals got their knowledge through complex and regulated educational system. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the patients, or more general - individuals/citizens –they are the masters of the data about themselves. In simple words – we know who we are. However, in order to diagnose the illness, and to heal ourselves, we need knowledge.
Subsequently, the health care system needs data-based decisions, but the patients/citizens need knowledge-based decisions. The individuals travel through (mainly on-line) knowledge landscapes in order to find the relevant health-knowledge, which should allow them to fight disease and maintain health. The recent views on human future highlighted the value of data, and under the term dataism, claimed that the ownership of the data would be the major power shaping the society. Here I suggest that the need for knowledge (owned by the system) and data (owned by individuals) will be the strongest in the health field, represented by health care vs. patients conflict. If the individuals could trade their personal data for knowledge about how to be healthy, the concerns of privacy and intimacy would be easily disregarded. However, the intimate nature of health-related data has the major potential for manipulation.
In conclusion, how to navigate safely toward health through the “knowledge landscapes” represents one of the major challenge of the future, data-enhanced society.