Walmart is one customer of Castlight Health whose "big data" app collects health data on a company's employees and then provides information to help them make the best healthcare decisions. One main goal of the mobile application is to reduce the health insurance costs of employers via preventative medicine that reduces costs such as prescription drugs and major surgery.
However, some people have raised questions about ethical concerns related to how companies would use their workers' medical history. Castlight claims personal data of workers is not sent to employers, so managers cannot learn which workers might have a child or are at risk for a heart attack, stroke, or diabetes, according to CBS News.
Alka Tandon is the lead product manager for Castlight. She explained that her company just shares how many people are in such groups, such as the number that might have surgery.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) states businesses cannot legally access an employee's personal medical data. However, getting information through data mining is a grey area when an individual worker is not named.
Another big problem is that discrimination in the workplace based on pregnancies or medical issues. In 2013 over 5,000 complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In addition, discrimination charges by pregnant women have risen during the past decade. It has spiked around one-third.
However, many companies are still tracking their workers' health such as through Fitbit fitness trackers. One group argues employees' health data should help shareholders to judge how fit workers are.
Tandon shared that workers can opt out of the health program. However, the new program shows that employees are now using their health plans better.
She pointed out that the company tests all messages sent out to workers to make sure that people will not be offended.
In other health tech news IBM has announced it will buy Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion, according to Fortune. The company provides cloud-based healthcare data to businesses, hospitals, drug companies, and United States government agencies. It is IBM's fourth big health-connected purchase since launching its Watson Health unit in April 2015.
Here's IBM's Watson Health: