Falck is a global leader in emergency response and healthcare services, with a legacy dating back to its founding in 1906 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Driven by the mission to prevent accidents, provide emergency assistance, and deliver professional healthcare services, Falck operates in 26 countries in three main strongholds: Europe, LATAM, and the US.
Falck specialises in healthcare services across preventive, acute, and rehabilitative care, such as ambulance services, firefighting, rescue and roadside assistance, consumer and workplace health solutions, and patient transportation. Its team of dedicated professionals, including paramedics, firefighters, and healthcare specialists, is committed to ensuring safety, saving lives, and supporting communities in times of need.
With a strong emphasis on innovation, sustainability, and customer-centric care, Falck combines advanced technologies with human expertise to deliver reliable and efficient services. Whether responding to emergencies, improving workplace safety, or enhancing community health, Falck remains a trusted partner in building resilient societies.
The Falck Winning Behaviours:
- We are committed to care.
- We build trust.
- Together, we create more value.
Falck: Advancing sustainable healthcare to meet people’s changing needs.
Peter Kaas, Head of Digital Legal and Data Privacy, Group GPO, Attorney-at-law, FIP, CIPP/E, CIPM, CISM, leads a team of commercially oriented lawyers and compliance professionals in the digital and privacy space. The team includes the Group DPO function, privacy operations, and legal business partnering to Falck Digital Technology.
Prior to joining Falck, Peter has worked in house in the IT industry and in private legal practice in top tier Danish law firms. Peter is an attorney-at-law, licensed to practice in Denmark. He is an external associate professor of IT law, IT contract law and data protection at the University of Copenhagen. He has a masters-in-law from the University of Copenhagen, an LLM from the University of Virginia, and holds several data privacy and information security certifications.
Laurence Simons (LS): Peter, many thanks for taking the time to speak with us. To start with, it would be great to hear a little about Falck’s approach to digital healthcare.
Peter Kaas (PK): In Falck, we are at the forefront of the digital healthcare revolution, which is being driven by demographic shifts and technological advancements. The aging population creates unprecedented demands on healthcare systems globally. This demographic change, coupled with evolving patient expectations (the generations of digital natives), and a growing shortage of professionals at all levels of the healthcare system, are key drivers for the digitalisation of healthcare and the move towards personalised medicine.
LS: Tell us a little about the solutions that you are working with, and the impacts this may have regards data privacy:
PK: We are leveraging a range of digital healthcare solutions, including telemedicine, wearable devices (we have run pilots in Denmark, Poland, the US, and Colombia using home monitoring), and we are exploring data analytics; all to extend the reach of Healthcare Professionals and deliver more efficient, personalised care. However, we recognise that this transformation comes with significant responsibilities, particularly in the realm of data privacy and security.
LS: There has been a lot of commentary on the topic of data regulation v ethical considerations. We’d love to hear how Falck is approaching this subject.
PK: The sensitive nature of healthcare data cannot be overstated. It includes not just identifiable information, but highly personal medical histories, genetic predispositions, and treatment plans. With the growing potential of technology, the definition may be further expanding. Data that might seem innocuous could become key parameters for treatments in the future and could therefore be considered healthcare data. At Falck, we understand that protecting this data is not just a regulatory obligation, but an ethical necessity. We therefore continuously work to create robust data protection frameworks.
LS: Talk us through your approach concerning privacy, are there specific areas of focus?
PK: Our approach to data privacy in digital healthcare focuses on several areas:
- Patient trust and confidentiality: We recognise that trust is the cornerstone of the healthcare system. The trust between a patient or client and the healthcare professional extends into the digital realm. We're committed to handling patient data with care, security, and transparency.
- Volume and sensitivity of data: Digital healthcare services rely on large amounts of data from various sources. We're continuously working with advanced security measures to protect this data at every stage.
- Data sharing and interoperability: While data sharing is crucial for holistic patient care, it also poses privacy risks. We work with secure systems for data sharing that comply with varying data protection laws across different jurisdictions.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): As we explore the potential of AI in healthcare services, we tackle many new and complicated privacy concerns and the particular risks associated with AI, such as bias in the output and training data, and automation basis when AI is used for decision support. This includes anonymisation of data used in AI models and working towards explainable AI in healthcare.
- Empowering patients with consent and control: We believe patients should have a high degree of control over their data. We work to ensure clear and transparent processes that inform patients and clients about what we do with data, how we do it, and why. Sometimes we are required by law to collect specific healthcare data to provide our services.
LS: How is the Falck legal team addressing these specific challenges:
PK: To address these challenges, our legal and compliance teams need to constantly evolve. We are developing expertise in cybersecurity, AI, ethics, and risk management, alongside deep regulatory knowledge.
One of the major challenges is keeping up with the speed of technological development. The recent AI revolution is a great example. This is coupled with increasing development in the regulatory space, such as the EU's "Fit for the Digital Age". We also see an increase in regulatory activity in other regions. And rightly so. With great power comes great responsibility. Digital technology gives us as healthcare providers great power, but this should be balanced by responsibility, which is often framed by regulatory requirements.
We also see that the healthcare regulatory space in the EU largely has not been harmonised and in some jurisdictions is drawn on principles from the analogue age, where medical information was a matter between the doctor and the client. This fundamental principle is sound and should be safeguarded; however, it may prove to create obstacles to the digitisation and leveraging of the values inherent in health data.
LS: In your mind, what is the biggest single challenge the market is facing:
PK: The advent of AI, in particular Generative AI, and the speed of this technology becoming available to everyone is the best recent example of how technology changes society. And we need to adapt and evolve as legal and compliance professionals. Right around the corner, we may face a new technical revolution in the shape of quantum computing. This - coupled with AI – could fundamentally change society as we know it.
LS: We have spoken previously about the importance of being able to learn and develop as a business, how are you applying this to the subject of digital healthcare?
PK: In essence, our approach at Falck is to embrace the opportunities presented by digital healthcare while proactively addressing the challenges of privacy, compliance, security, and ethics. We believe that by prioritising data protection and ethics, we can lead in delivering innovative, efficient, and personalised healthcare solutions that meet the needs of our aging population while maintaining the trust of our patients.
This means that we need to constantly invest ourselves in understanding the new technology. As a concrete example, we took the approach in Falck Legal & Compliance to adopt AI in the way we work. The benefit is two-fold: It is a technology that seems very suited to support the work done by legal and compliance professionals as most of what we do is centred on language and working with language in the sense of writing, communicating, and synthesising information. At the same time, this helps us develop a deep and intimate understanding of the technology, poising us to advise on the regulatory and operational risks of the technology. In my view, this is a very organic way of building an understanding of new technologies.
LS: Peter, thank you again for sitting down to speak with us, please could you leave us with your final thoughts on this very interesting and evolving subject and the direction that Falck is taking on this journey:
PK: In Falck, our vision is to lead the healthcare industry in delivering innovative, efficient, and personalised care while setting new standards in data privacy and ethical data practices. We believe that by successfully navigating these challenges, we can harness the full potential of digital healthcare and personalised medicine to improve patient outcomes, increase healthcare efficiency, and meet the evolving needs of our diverse patient population. In a sense we can combine many years of experience – we're a 118-year-old company – with a curiosity and a willingness to embrace change.