Patient Centric Healthcare using Blockchain with Epidemics Analysis

Project Title

Patient Centric Healthcare using Blockchain with Epidemics Analysis

Project Area of Specialization BlockchainProject Summary

Privacy is recognized as a basic human right by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) at the 1948 United Nations General Assembly. The aim of Patient-Centric Healthcare system using Blockchain technology is to ensure patient agency with respect to the patient’s personal health information. Consistent with GDPR standards, using Blockchain technology, we can develop a system (with Easy-to-use Interface) in compliance with HIPAA and HL7 standards of personal privacy. Once the data is accessible, epidemics analytics can be performed on the health data to predict patterns of certain diseases and infections prevalent in a particular area. Furthermore, interoperability among various Healthcare Organizations for better quality and availability of data is a concern that is possible using this project.

Project Objectives

With the Patient-Centric Healthcare system using Blockchain technology, we can provide secure Health Information Exchange of patient’s personal information. The balance between high accessibility and robust privacy can be achieved through Distributed Ledgers Technology. This can lead to improved disease diagnosis, reductions in professional errors and better identification of health risks. It will open gates for interoperability among different healthcare institutions (hospitals, clinics, laboratories, insurance companies, pharma) better healthcare research opportunities with patient’s consent.

Project Implementation Method

With the emerging Blockchain and smart contracts (written in Solidity on Remix IDE) with Ethereum, a patient-centric healthcare system is a possibility. The web interfaces (for patients and providers) will be made using HTML, CSS and JavaScript as certain Blockchain support and interconnectivity is available with it (via Web3.JS). A Blockchain network of 2-3 nodes, capable of supporting suitable infrastructure will suffice for the demonstration of this project.

We have tested a demo blockchain system using Ganache that provides ease of Blockchain setup with demo accounts. We also developed an election voting system using Ethereum. We are now striving to create a private Ethereum Blockchain that will use PoW to maintain ledgers for the healthcare data.

Benefits of the Project

The benefits of the project are huge. For example, a person visits Agha Khan in January'2019 for a medical checkup and gets a CT Scan report. Later in February'2020, he is suffering from a similar disease but he goes to Liaquat National for the diagnosis. Now, using Patient Centric Healthchare, person is able to share his/her medical history with Liaquat National with his/her consent. All the medical history, medical encounter, medical reports and prescriptions are kept safe and secure on the Blockchain. And with the permission of the person, the data can be shared among various healthcare organizations around the globe. 

Now that data has been stored with patient's consent, it can be used for research purposes and epidemics analysis for example Malaria or any other outbreak like Corona Virus can be identified in a particular region as more cases are identified in a particular hospital. All records are kept safe and distributed in Blockchain. Medical agencies can then focus on those areas to help clear up the epidemics.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Following is the summary of features that will be a part of Patient-Centric Healthcare system using Blockchain Technology. This gives an idea of the scope of our project.

• Blockchain network as a distributed ledger of access permissions
  1. Digital signatures through Public key cryptography
  2. Validation and verification
  3. Consensus
  4. Immutability
  5. Smart Contracts
• Provider (Healthcare Organization) node(s) as Web Interface
  1. Authentication
  2. Add new medical records for a patient
  3. Update medical records for a patient
  4. View medical history with respect to each patient
• Patient node(s) as Web Interface
  1. Authentication
  2. View health information
  3. Update health information access permissions for healthcare organizations
• Epidemics Analysis on Provider node(s)

This will help identify potential health risks with respect to certain area using patients’ health information.

Ethereum private network is the Blockchain that we are using, precisely Go-Ethereum. Solidity is used to write smart contracts via Remix IDE. The web interfaces for provider and patient nodes will be setup using HTML, CSS and React JavaScript. Interconnectivity between blockchain smart contracts and web interfaces is provided by Web3.JS. The consensus that we are using is Proof of Work i.e. more powerful computing resources get to mine and validate the data.

Final Deliverable of the Project Software SystemCore Industry MedicalOther Industries IT , Health Core Technology BlockchainOther Technologies OthersSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for PeopleRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	75000
GPU (NVIDIA)	Equipment	1	70000	70000
Stationary	Miscellaneous	1	5000	5000