Todd Foley: Hello and welcome to the CDO magazine interview series. I’m Todd Foley, the Chief Digital and Information Security Officer at Lydonia. Today, I have the pleasure of talking with Melissa Mitchell, Chief Privacy Officer at Phreesia. Melissa, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.
Melissa Mitchell: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Todd Foley: Great, Melissa. I know that Phreesia’s approach is very different from what we see out in the wild and far beyond sort of the single point of engagement where somebody has to click on a 20-page privacy disclosure or ULA, or companies have bolted on some sort of opt-out option unique for California residents. It sounds like with your platform, you’re engaging people in a direct way and enabling them to understand more about how they’re engaging and how they’re using their information. As you look at this whole space, as you look at the scope of privacy and patient and client engagement, I know you’re active also in a number of national initiatives including the network advertising initiative. How do you see things changing over the next few years? Where do you think this is moving to?
Melissa Mitchell: The nature of being in healthcare is, you know, that HIPAA applies to a lot of the different entities that are involved in this space. So while we’ve been doing that, you know, while we’ve been compliant with HIPAA for this entire journey of ours, that has also allowed us to think about the, you know, the foundation of HIPAA. And that brings me back to that north star of, you know, why did we have—why do we have HIPAA in place in the first place, and then why do we have these emerging state laws? And I think while they’re all different and sometimes very different, they all are tied back to the common thread of: do people really understand what is happening with their data? Is it being safeguarded appropriately? And are they being given a choice when, you know, in these circumstances where we believe that choice should be allowed and required? So I think that while it can look like a journey that’s gone all over the place and up and down, you know, I still see it sort of on this trajectory of just trying to get closer to what people expect out of their, with regard to choice around their data and also to just harness the incredible power that that data has. Right? So some people really want to do that and want to say, “I want my data to be used in X way,” and some people don’t. So, for example, for my own personal life, I, you know, really love to travel and I really—I’m one of those people that, you know, not everybody likes this but I like to plan my whole itinerary before I go and everything’s planned out. And to do that, you know, I’m—I do a lot of research, so I’m reading reviews and I’m on travel websites and I’m signing up for things and I’m, you know, checking the boxes of saying, “Yes, you can use my data to track what I’m doing,” and then maybe offer me up suggestions because I love that and I find that to be convenient and it’s very valuable to me. There are some people that don’t like that, right? There’s some people that don’t want that kind of noise out there for them, so they don’t find it useful. So we’re all every day making these tradeoffs, and I think increasingly so, like to your point of where are we going, you know, it’s only going to compound from here these kinds of choices. So really what I think is important to understand about people making these choices and being in this space is that, you know, they’re probably thinking about at least two things: they’re thinking about, do I trust this company to do the right thing with my data, and is it valuable to me if I do trust it? Right? Because if it’s not valuable, then, then, you know, nobody wants it. So we think what we have is very valuable, you know, we’ve done all of this work so people will trust us. So I think that thinking is what differentiates us. But I also think that, you know, there’s just going to be a lot more players in this space, and if we are all thinking about that, we’re probably well served in harnessing the great power of that data.
Todd Foley: Well said, and I certainly agree that things are accelerating. I think just the idea of AI agents helping with things—to use the example of helping you travel—if you’re really going to get good advice, you want that agent to understand everything potentially, right? And there are considerations around data access and data privacy related to that. I think knowing those considerations and everybody having a very personal sort of relation to what they’re willing to disclose or have used is obviously critical to be able to build trust with any consumer access to data, but in particular in healthcare for patients. I would think also that being able to build that trust can lead to things beyond just effective data use. Right? How can building patient trust lead to something like more personalized healthcare?
Melissa Mitchell: You—I mean, we are in a very unique position to do exactly that, right? So if people opt in, if users opt in to our platform in that way in order to receive personalized messaging, then we are able to deliver really relevant and reputable—and we think super high-quality—information that patients can use at these critical moments when they can benefit from it the most. And that’s, you know, maybe right before they talk to their provider, or, you know, when they’re going through a specific, you know, problem or issue in their healthcare journey. So that’s how we see people using our platform and seeing value in it. And then, you know, it just becomes a matter of what that looks like to build that trust and to get folks to understand what we think is, you know, the power behind that data.
Todd Foley: You think about a lot of the challenges in healthcare around caring for populations and some of the metrics that are frequently used to evaluate things like medication compliance, or just the fact that the way healthcare is these days, it’s really incumbent upon patients to be more informed, to be advocates themselves. How does Phreesia help with that? How does opting into those things allow you to engage even before a visit?
Melissa Mitchell: Yeah, I mean, the type of powerful data that we’re sitting on is to say to a person, you know, this might be very, you know, if you opt into this, we have this message that might be very relevant to where you are, and then that will allow you to come to your next appointment with questions or ideas or, you know, maybe, “I should be trying this potential therapy rather than the one I’ve been trying.” So, it really allows folks to have a very active role in their care because it just exposes them to data and to potential choice for their healthcare journey, you know, as they’re going through it.
Todd Foley: I really appreciate you sharing that perspective. It’s been a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you very much.
Melissa Mitchell: Thanks for having me.
Todd Foley: For those listening, please visit cdomagazine.tech for additional interviews, and thank you all for taking the time.
