Phreesia: Protecting Health Data to Support Personalized Healthcare and Build Trust

By Melissa Mitchell, Chief Privacy Officer, Phreesia

Patient data holds tremendous potential to improve health outcomes by enabling personalized care. At Phreesia, we see firsthand the benefits of leveraging patient data. We know that tailored messaging and content, informed by patient health information, can make healthcare more meaningful and effective, and it can help individuals become more active participants in their care. Our personalized healthcare platform that automates the patient check-in process and other administrative functions for healthcare organizations—such as doctor’s offices, physician practices, hospitals and health systems—does just that. We also believe that patients should be in charge of their own personal health information—they should have a choice about how their data is used and whether that data is shared or not. Many patients recognize the benefits of personalized care—but healthcare data is highly sensitive information, and many people are also rightly cautious and concerned about how it is used. That’s why it is vitally important to us to secure affirmative opt-in consent, ensuring that patients understand how their data will be used and explicitly agree to receive third-party content on our platform.

Personalized messaging improves health outcomes

At Phreesia, we work hard to help patients have more informed conversations with their providers and play a more active, engaged role in their health. We only deliver supplemental, science-backed content to those who have provided affirmative opt-in consent to receive it.

Our research shows that the relevant, high-quality health information presented to patients on our platform leads to better health outcomes, such as increased rates of diagnoses, treatment of chronic disease, preventive screenings and vaccinations, and improvements in symptoms and quality of life. Consider the following, for example:

• Patients exposed to immunization messages just before their appointments received incremental vaccinations at a rate more than twice as high, on average, than control groups who did not see that information
• 87% of patients who saw content about managing high blood pressure said they were somewhat or very likely to talk to their doctor about it
• 78% of patients who saw a Phreesia campaign about breast cancer awareness said they were likely to talk to their doctor about breast cancer screenings
• 52% of patients who engaged with a Phreesia PSA about Alzheimer’s disease said they were likely to talk to their doctor about it
• Patients aged 50-80 years old with a history of smoking were 234% more likely to get screened for lung cancer after seeing a campaign

We understand what these kinds of outcomes mean in the lives of real families, as well as the many other benefits of messaging that is delivered to individuals who have unique needs. We also believe patients have a choice and should be in charge of their own health information, which is why we are serious about our commitment to maintaining and upholding our commitment to privacy.

Safeguarding patient privacy builds trust

Safeguarding each patient’s personal information is not just a regulatory requirement. We must maintain strong controls that protect privacy to build that trust—with the patients that use our platform, the healthcare providers who bring us into their practices, and the life science brands, government organizations, advocacy groups, public health associations and other organizations that partner with us.

We have built our platform and the way it serves personalized health content on the principles of privacy and consent, and we set the bar high for ourselves. The content that patients interact with on our platform won’t follow them around the internet. For example, if a patient sees content for a medication that treats migraines, that content will not follow them as a sponsored advertisement on a webpage when online shopping later that day. We do not sell data, nor do we allow the use of any third-party tracking technology to be placed in any content or advertisement featured on our platform. 

We know the risk of process breakdowns and the threat of a bad actor hacking in and causing harm. That’s why, at every level of our organization, we have checks and balances in place to protect patient information.

We are experiencing a new frontier for health data privacy in the United States, where new state and federal legal requirements require higher standards for health data privacy. Phreesia welcomes stronger legal protections that provide an opportunity to help people’s health privacy expectations become a reality. We are honored to join the NAI and collaborate with other organizations that are thinking about privacy as a core value in the future of advertising. 

Learn more about Phreesia and how we deliver tailored media to clinically relevant patients at the point of care.

About Phreesia

Phreesia is the trusted leader in patient activation, giving providers, life sciences companies and other organizations tools to help patients take a more active role in their care. Founded in 2005, Phreesia enabled approximately 150 million patient visits in 2023—more than 1 in 10 visits across the U.S.—scale that we believe allows us to make meaningful impact. Offering patient-driven digital solutions for intake, outreach, education and more, Phreesia enhances the patient experience, drives efficiency and improves healthcare outcomes. To learn more, visit phreesia.com.