Part of the problem with health care is that the focus is on the condition and sometimes forgets the patient. I worry that anonymising data too much could jeopardise outcomes. I have been a cardiac patient for over a year and am awaiting surgery. Having been to numerous clinics, had many tests and read a number of books on the subject (Dr Google has far too much inaccurate and mis- information) it is clear the person is very relevant. The person's age, BMI, cholesterol, if they smoke, pre-existing conditions, etc. are all totally relevant. Yet elsewhere I have heard of those in charge wanting to delete some pre-existing conditions to increase anonymity> doing this could result in data mining giving data nonsense. This in turn could affect outcomes. To me a much more important issue in health care is security!
Again agree - simple processes (even if they have rich data) I believe are the way forward for security - I tend to think that deleting data is often counter productive