Coronavirus Tracking with Blockchain- QuillTrace

Fighting against Coronavirus can only be won by controlling the spread by limiting human-to-human contact. Information — real-time, reliable and accurate — is the key weapon in this battle.

Volunteer To Fight COVID-19

Blockchain can help here —

Blockchain as a decentralized ledger technology has matured over the years. It provides fault-tolerant and highly secure storage of digital data based on the leading cryptographic standards. It also acts as a single source of truth in scenarios where multiple parties interact with data simultaneously. Successful implementations of the Blockchain framework include drug monitoring in Pharmaceutical industries or authenticating food supply chains.

blockckchain consortium of government , labs and patient records

These properties make Blockchain technology a front-line defense in the fight against Coronavirus. Multiple parties (Government, Patient, Hospitals — public/private) should act in a coordinated fashion and make intelligent decisions based on a single source of truth. There is no margin of error as the exponential nature of the virus can be disastrous as seen from early mishaps.

The exponential nature of the Coronavirus spread means that the only way to control it is via deliberate and fault-tolerant tracking mechanism of the patients in terms of their quarantine engagements. Blockchain can also help healthcare professionals monitor the efficacy of the treatment across a large-scale population. It can also track patient moments, provide real-time data about affected locations and direct prevention efforts accordingly based on the limited resources (test kits, healthcare professionals etc.).

Here are the issues Blockchain can help to address.

1. The government’s ability to test, cure and monitor the ever-increasing number of cases is going to be exhausted at a certain point in time (often referred to as flattening the curve). It also means that private hospitals will eventually need to pitch in.
2. More participation from private parties (either for testing or providing care) can also lead to a lack of standard along with disparate data standards.
3. As more and more people put under observations/quarantine, it puts the onus on the patients to self-report and cure.

If you multiply the above issues by the ever-growing size of affected populations, decentralized fault-tolerant data repository of the patients becomes almost a necessity.

In summary, Blockchain-based patient tracking solution can be used to –

• Enforce common data reporting standard
• Establish a single source of truth
• Provide technology platform for all stakeholders — Patients, hospitals, Governments
• Effectively monitor quarantine cases — home or medical facility
• Enable location tracking of the patients via routine check-in mechanisms, without impacting data privacy
• Generate real-time data insights in terms of actual cases, impacted population/geolocation analysis

Faster deployment cycles of the Blockchain framework also mean that it can be stand-up in days and scale adequately.

Using our QuillTrace Product , we recently did the proof of concept for the Coronavirus patient tracking application using the Blockchain framework.

The proposed Blockchain solution is designed to accommodate three different stakeholder perspectives — Patients, Hospitals, Government. Essentially, they all are looking and generating insights from the same data, often called a single source of truth.

Blockchain Use Cases

Patients

Patients can use it to monitor home quarantine. It can also be extended to self-report symptoms to the nearest hospitals/government authorities.

Some of the use cases are as below.

1. The patient can monitor the start and end date of advised quarantines and deal with associated alerts
2. He/She can also report daily of his location (Check-In) — either via mail/message/mobile app. It can even allow location access to trace his movement if data privacy considerations allow.
3. He/She can report symptoms or improvements over the course.
4. He/She can communicate with caregivers/doctors and seek advice.

Hospitals/Doctors

Hospitals can use it to monitor patients admitted for facility quarantine.

Some of the use-cases are as below.

1. Hospitals can log and report patients. They can also create medical reports.
2. They can also record daily treatments and efficacy of it. Over time, it can also act as a collaboration tool across doctors to short-list the most effective treatments.
3. They can also capture patient data/treatments over the quarantine period. Anonymised data can also be used by research agencies to short-list and approve dosages or standardize the method of care.
4. They can also conduct discharge procedures and conduct follow-up treatments if any.
5. Tracking and Monitoring of test kits and uploading of results from standardized test labs

Government

Governments can use the data updated by individual patients under home quarantine or the hospitals conducting facility-based quarantines.

This data can be used to generate further insights such as –

1. Community map of affected population by geolocation. It can be further used to enforce community lockdowns for affected areas only, without disrupting the lives of large-scale population.
2. Real-time reporting — Patients in-home/facility quarantine
3. Impact analysis based on location check-ins by home quarantined patients and provide advisory to un-affected population
4. Testing Center monitoring — Public / Private, to enforce standardized test procedures and reporting

*Special thanks for Dr. Ameet Dravid for insights from the field in this matter.

QuillTrace- Supply-Chain Management through Blockchain Technology

How can you get involved?

Drop an email at

• Sanket Kulkarni (induslearnhub@gmail.com)
• Preetam Rao (preetam@quillhash.com)

Send message on LinkedIn

Sanket Kulkarni — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanket-kulkarni-050b4416/

Preetam Rao — https://www.linkedin.com/in/raopreetam/

Fill in the Google Forms

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScs6lOJPrtcINj6IH0-4zr8H1GKqhMP0l08-sy8ajZNz4O6rA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Follow GitHub repository — We will continue to add content as it moves ahead.

Quillhash/covid19_quilltrace_tracker

https://trace.quillhash.com/