Preparing for the launch of MedX
The community asked us to build. And that’s what we did.
If the current sentiment of crypto enthusiasts could be summed up in one word, it would be build. Here at MedX, that’s what we’ve done. Instead of obsessing over the cryptocurrency price slump, we have taken advantage of this time to increase our development efforts to be one of the few platforms to successfully launch on Ethereum mainnet in 2018.
From the day we first conceived the vision for MedX in 2016, our mission has been to create a global healthcare market that is freely available to patients, physicians and developers worldwide.
The technology and infrastructure to build this open healthcare market is just now approaching a state of maturity, and could not have been accomplished even 2 years ago. Let’s take a step back to see why.
When I mention that our team is building an “open global healthcare market,” the first question or comment I receive is either Is that legal? or Healthcare is so regulated, tech progress is slow. Good luck. I agree. These are nearly always prudent comments regarding healthcare innovation. However, they actually highlight the advantage of what we are building here at MedX Protocol.
One of the key regulation checkpoints in healthcare is storage and transfer of patient health information (PHI). There are pages upon pages of compliance guidelines both locally (in the USA, at the state level) and nationally (e.g. HIPAA, GDPR). These guidelines can be difficult to navigate and costly. Moreover, the guidelines for the international storage and transfer of patient health information are not well delineated. These compliance burdens are a barrier to innovation for startups. Even for established companies or systems, the penalties for a breach or mistake in an uncertain area of compliance can be intimidating.
In the USA, a breach of HIPAA can cost an HHS fine up to $1.5 million/violation, State Attorneys General penalty up to $6.8 million, FTC fine of $16,000/violation, and a lawsuit up to $1000 per record.
Given the penalties, it is no surprise that centralized companies cautiously tiptoe toward technological progress when the stakes are so high. As long as centralized companies control patient-physician encounters and are liable for storage of patient health information, it is unlikely that a global healthcare market will exist in the near future.
What if the direct control of both health information and selection of healthcare provider was entirely in the patient’s hands? Without a centralized company acting as the custodian of PHI and managing healthcare providers, these compliance burdens disappear.
In essence, I’m describing an open global healthcare market that can be interpreted as a “bulletin board” for health services. This is the MedX Protocol advantage. Patients worldwide can immediately connect with a global network of physicians, and provide the relevant health information for diagnoses and treatment plans via telemedicine.
Studies shows that up to 75% of in-office health visits can be addressed via telemedicine over video or pictures.
On MedX, at no point does a centralized company have the power to view, control, store or transfer patient health information. It is entirely in the patient’s hands what health information is shared with a physician.
Again, the technology to build this decentrally maintained global health market was not available until just recently. It requires a public blockchain with smart contract functionality (e.g. Ethereum), IPFS for decentralized cloud storage, mobile dApp browser (e.g. Coinbase wallet dApp browser), and client side encryption. All of this technology is employed in the MedX Protocol. The result is a global healthcare market controlled by the people who use it.
Since 2016, we have built out the critical infrastructure to move that mission forward and are rapidly becoming well-positioned for a successful launch of the MedX health system. Let’s go ahead and dive into the layers of the MedX health system that we have developed thus far.
Protocol Layer
The protocol layer consists of our decentralized physician registry, MedX. We have developed the first token-curated registry (TCR) of physicians. For those unfamiliar with TCRs, a TCR is a decentrally maintained list judiciously curated by token holders in exchange for economic rewards. Upon launch of MedX, verifiers around the world will carefully curate and decentrally maintain a global pool of licensed and certified physicians in exchange for MEDX tokens and ETH.
The MedX Physician Registry will be freely available for any 3rd party healthcare application or dApp dev team to access. This means that any healthcare application will have immediate access to a global network of physicians from a multitude of specialties.
The Alpha release of the MedX Registry has been privately tested since June 2018, but is now available at registry.medxprotocol.com. Alternatively, a video demonstration of the registry is now available.
MedX Registry Development Milestones
- MedX physician registry smart contracts deployed on Rinkeby testnet
- Integration with IPFS for decentralized storage of physician credentials
- Integration with the Civic Secure Identity Ecosystem for convenient physician login
- MEDX wallet integrated with MetaMask and user interface
- Friendly user interface for reviewing, flagging or verifying physician credentials
DApp Layer
Any 3rd party developer or existing healthcare application can access the MedX registry for an instant pool of physicians. After months of rigorous development, we built OpenCare as the first dApp to be launched on the MedX Protocol.
OpenCare will give patients and referring healthcare providers access to a global network of specialists for diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Dermatology for the diagnosis and treatment of skin ailments will be the first specialty supported on OpenCare, but it will later include ophthalmology, radiology, psychiatry and general practice medicine.
OpenCare is a true dApp in the sense that the patient-physician encounter is controlled by Solidity smart contracts, patient health information is encrypted on the client side and uploaded to IPFS for decentralized cloud storage, private keys are patient-controlled and physicians are granted access to health information directly by patients in signed transactions. At risk of ad nauseam, the MedX Team cannot view or control patient health information, and OpenCare is essentially a “bulletin board” that connects patients with physicians.
In public beta testing since July 2018, OpenCare will be launched on Ethereum mainnet by October 11, 2018. The product video demo can be viewed here or you can test it for yourself at opencare.medxprotocol.com.
OpenCare Development Milestones
- Integration with IPFS for decentralized storage of patient records
- Automated image compression for faster uploading/downloading
- General-purpose redux-saga library to interact with Ethereum Virtual Machine
- Online/offline pubsub for efficient distribution of patient cases to online physicians
- Built-in faucets for maximum convenience
- Friendly user interface for both patients and physicians with notifications, status bars and MetaMask integration
- Partnership with MakerDAO and integration with DAI token and ETH for payment
- Compatibility with mobile Coinbase wallet dApp browser
Formation of OpenCare Clinical Advisory Board
- Arjun Dupati, MD
- Dhwani Mehta, MD
- Noor Tazudeen, MD
- Nikhil Shyam, MD
- Mario Mitkov, MD
- Ryan Trowbridge, MD
- Newsha Lajevardi, MD
- Ivanka Kovalyshyn, MD
- Geeta Patel, MD
- Rohit Kakar, MD
Final Words
As is the case with most decentralized systems, there is some initial degree of centralization during the infancy state to ensure that there is a smooth mainnet launch. For OpenCare, this will initially consist of a small pool of licensed dermatologists available to provide recommendations for skin ailments.
However, once the MedX Registry is launched on Ethereum mainnet in Q1 2019, OpenCare will access the MedX physician registry to be a fully decentralized ecosystem from Ethereum blockchain to application layer, and will support a multitude of medical specialties (not just dermatology). Moreover, any 3rd party will be freely able to launch their own unstoppable medical dApps on the MedX Protocol.
Lastly, we would like to thank all those in our community for testing and providing feedback these past few months!
For any questions, we are available on Telegram or you can visit us at https://medxprotocol.com/.
