Exploring common digital health challenges

China and the UK may be separated by many thousands of miles but, as a recent Royal Society of Medicine event proved, these are two countries facing similar digital health obstacles and opportunities. Claire Read reports.

Guilan Kong and her colleagues are in the process of building a major healthcare data project. The idea is to use information collected as part of routine care to monitor outcomes and quickly identify improvements in care, with a specific focus on the diagnosis and management of chronic kidney disease.

“It’s a promising but challenging job for our team to build this learning health system,” explains Kong. “It’s not easy for healthcare organisations to share patient data and there are ethical and...