Bass Connections Team Tackles Real-World Mental Health Data and Ethics with Healthcare Tech Company Holmusk
On October 4th, our Bass Connections team, Bioethics and the Use of Real-World Mental Health Data, had a valuable opportunity to engage in an experiential learning activity in collaboration with a member of the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy's Real World Evidence Collaborative.
During the session, the team interacted with Holmusk, a healthcare technology company that specializes in data analytics and digital health solutions within the field of mental health. Holmusk is committed to revolutionizing healthcare delivery and improving patient outcomes by leveraging data-driven insights and digital health solutions. As part of this enriching learning experience, Holmusk provided students with insights into contemporary real-world mental health data sources, including electronic health record data. They also delved into the challenges that exist in the mental health sector, with a particular focus on ethical dilemmas related to the delicate balance between privacy and innovation, all while navigating diverse regulatory guidelines on a global scale.
Holmusk actively engaged our Bass team in a discussion that centered around these ethical challenges, encouraging them to reflect on the internal processes they employ to address these complex ethical dilemmas. Students on the Bass team also had the opportunity to present guidelines and frameworks they have identified in their preliminary research and outlined strategies they would use to mitigate bias and protect the privacy of patients in research data sets.
As part of this engagement opportunity, students were also granted temporary access to the NeuroBlue platform, an advanced data analytics platform that is powered by the world's foremost source of real-world data on behavioral health conditions, symptoms, and treatments. This access enabled the team to explore variations in rates of specific mental health diagnoses among different demographic groups, and long-term treatment trajectories and outcomes.
Holmusk was particularly impressed by the caliber of the team's engagement during the session. They expressed their appreciation for the students' probing questions and their ability to delve deep into the ethical complexities of the mental health field. Holmusk also highlighted the immense value of having an interdisciplinary group of students participate in the discussion. They emphasized that the students' insights and reactions were invaluable in providing fresh viewpoints on the ethical dilemmas they face on a daily basis. Their commendation highlighted the significance of diverse perspectives and expertise coming together to address complex healthcare challenges.