Blockchain for Medical Records
- by Shreyas Nanaware, Punit Agarwal, and Sukant Khurana
What is Blockchain?
Due to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, many of you might have heard the term blockchain. According to Wikipedia, “A blockchain, originally block chain, is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”.”
In simpler words, it is an encrypted, append-only system of records that is shared by multiple parties in a business network and each party can only access relevant information. The relevant parties authorize every transaction in the ledger. Sharing a record across many parties prevents tampering and since it is encrypted, only authorized parties can access the information.
But how is it useful and better than current methods? We will see some of the problems affecting the healthcare industry and how blockchain can solve them.
Problems affecting healthcare
In the U.S. alone, the National Healthcare Anti-Fraud Association estimates the loss owing to health care fraud to be about $80 billion annually. On an average, 250,000 to 500,000 individuals become victims of medical identity thefts globally every year. In a survey, 50 percent of consumers say they would find another healthcare provider if they were concerned about the security of their medical records.
According to Healthcare IT News, in the February 2015 Ponemon study, 89 percent of victims said the identity theft “affected their reputation mainly because of embarrassments due to disclosure of sensitive personal health conditions.” What’s more, nearly 20 percent said it caused them to miss out on career opportunities. Half of the respondents say they’ll go to another provider if they had concerns about it.
Another crime caused by stolen medical records is being billed for services that were never rendered — either by using genuine patient information, sometimes obtained through identity theft, to fabricate entire claims or by padding claims with charges for procedures or services that did not take place.
Also, medical records may sometimes be lost primarily due to reliance on paper-based methods. Lack of required information makes it difficult for the healthcare providers to administer appropriate treatment.
Medical information can be tampered with, misused, stolen or even lost because of the intermediaries getting access to it and also due to too heavy reliance on paper-based documents.
At times, the insurer, may not have the updated medical information and hence may refuse to pay for the treatment.
How blockchain can help
Medical records should be stored on a distributed ledger or blockchain using tools such as Hyperledger Composer. The blockchain is shared with the patient, healthcare provider, insurer, and the government. In this case, the government acts as the regulator.
All the medical information related to the patient such as past and present ailments, treatments, family history of medical problems will be stored in the blockchain. This will make every record permanent, transferable and accessible which will prevent the medical records from being lost or modified.
Through a mobile application, the patients will sign up and will be provided a unique address and a password for logging in and another unique address will be provided. This unique address of the patient will be provided to the healthcare provider, insurer and government (automatically). The patients can access all the medical information. When information is required, the healthcare provider or insurer will send a request along with the details of information to be viewed. The patient will authorize access to the information. This will protect the privacy of patients and make them the owners of their information. This prevents medical identity theft (which is also used for billing patients for unrendered treatments.)
When the insurer has the latest information and smart contracts are used to set the terms of the contract, the insurer can provide the money immediately.
Conclusion
Thus, Blockchain will help revolutionize the healthcare sector by providing permanent, trustable and accessible medical records, privacy and faster payments.
References
https://medium.com/@philsiarri/blockchain-in-healthcare-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-60f73c6f6909
https://www.outsource2india.com/Healthcare/articles/healthcare-fraud-abuse-needs-attention.asp
https://medium.com/@blockxlabs/blockchain-in-healthcare-6a0f8ee7cc4f
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/medical-identity-theft-hits-all-time-high
http://www.healthcarebusinesstech.com/healthcare-fraud/
https://hearthy.co/assets/images/Hearthy-whitepaper.pdf
— -
— — -
Dr. Sukant Khurana runs an academic research lab and several tech companies. He is also a known artist, author, and speaker. You can learn more about Sukant at www.brainnart.com or www.dataisnotjustdata.com and if you wish to work on blockchain, biomedical research, neuroscience, sustainable development, artificial intelligence or data science projects for public good, you can contact him at skgroup.iiserk@gmail.com or by reaching out to him on linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukant-khurana-755a2343/.
Here are two small documentaries on Sukant and a TEDx video on his citizen science effort.
