Introduction
As a student in the Nigeria college system, I have witnessed many occasion where even during an emergency admission of a student in the university clinic, a delay in treatment usually follow due to lack of a readily accessible medical data system where the student's records can be quickly checked to avoid administering a wrong treatment on him or her.
Another common case is the repetitive conduction of a certain test on a patient more than once due to lack of a linked access to the patient's previous medical records. Students have many times complained of being repeatedly diagnosed and given drugs for an ailment which would only work for a short period before the illness resurfaced.
The highly protected medical information system being run by most medical institutions buttressed by HIPPA privacy rules that state that “all medical information must be kept confidential” contribute to these rigid system being witnessed.
But, should it really be like that? Do we really need to endanger our lives over a set of policy which in fact isn't totally "protected"? Why can't we be the boss of our data rather than let someone keep it for us and eventually make it unreadily accessible?
Well, if you agree with me that we need a reshape and a total redefinition of the face of Medical Records System, permit me to introduce you to Medibloc - the decentralized patient-centered medical records system!
What is Medibloc?
MediBloc is an open-source healthcare data platform built on the blockchain aimed at validating and securing indexed history of patient's medical records in a decentralized manner giving the patient the overall control over his/her data at every point in time. With the decentralized system of operation, Medibloc provides a secure and integration of scattered data of patient's medical history from different institutions and platforms at every point in time on a single platform and readily accessible at the authorization by the patient himself or herself.
From the Medibloc's mission statement which goes thus:
“Improve health care access and experience by redistributing value of personal healthcare data, accelerating the world’s shift to private information decentralization.”
We can see that the power over data management can now be referred to as "personal", unlike the old system which helps to keep one's "personal" data yet making it unreadily accessible for personal usage. The security and integrity level of this old system has been faulted by many reports with the 2015 report about a breach in the medical records system in the US telling us of how really "unprotected" our data really are. It was stated and represented that:
more than 112 million healthcare records were breached just in the United States and annual financial loss is recorded to be over $6.2 billion.
This tells us that protecting our data in such a centralized system despite the privacy policy isn't what we need but rather, a system like that of Medibloc where the patient is the alpha and omega of his/her data, to be readily accessed in times of need and shared to authorities only at his own discretion.
So, we need a disruption of the way in which electronic medical data is being managed in the healthcare industry, by introduction decentralization and a patient-driven system.
So, what does Medibloc offer over the old Medical Records System?
- Maximum Security over data
As stated by the HIPPA privacy rules that, “all medical information must be kept confidential”, so we need a system that thoroughly of this maximum security of data for which a breach wouldn't be possible. As in the current mode of the data record system, many individuals are exposed to this information as it is being stored and is susceptible to a high risk of exposure at a point in time. But with Medibloc, these rights are solely designated to the owner of these records thereby blocking any possibility of leaks or mismanagement of information.
The access level is thus controlled by the owner and in the case of necessities, only verified medical practitioners through the healthcare provider’s credential system would be allowed access to view the healthcare data of a patient. This again would be at the discretion of the patient thereby making Medibloc a reliable system and with maximum security as compared to the old system
- High Transparency
According to a study by Verizon, in their Data Breach Digest, it was reported that:
it is more likely for private information to be released from inside leaks/mistakes rather than breaches from the outside
So this gives us a view of how porous the current system can be.
With Medibloc, other than giving access when needed to only verified medical practitioners, the platform, as it is being run on the blockchain allows us to see the activity of those who write/read/access a patient information giving us a transparent system where we would be able to trace the changes and who made those changes to a patient data.
Tracking the activities on patient's data has been an issue in the system for we can't monitor what, where and how a patient's information is being used or handled. But with the transparency offered by Medibloc, users can be more assured of a clean system void of data exploitation.
- High Reliability
Remember I mentioned how students are kept waiting at the school clinic awaiting their records to be checked manually in the data room before being administered any treat? Many times, there are usually issues of misplaced files and prolonged delay due to inability to locate the files. Many times, student are usually faced with repeating tests or diagnosed without consulting previous records.
With Medibloc operating on the decentralized system of the blockchain technology, the data are locked in a continuously generated block connected to numbers of systems. This way, the data aren't just assuredly stored securely but they also become readily available without any reliability issue or any possibility of data misplacement.
Modification to records is also been monitored with indexed history kept and back-up data continuously generated.
- High Interoperability
The level of data Interoperability restrictions offered by the current system of medical data system limits the growth of research and improved medical care to a patient. Many times have we witnessed cases where a patient is admitted miles away from his/her resident and without access to any previous medical records witness delay in treatment due to prior tests and background check of his medical status.
Do we really need to stick to this rigid system when we can easily transfer the existing records for a patient over to the system of this medical institution eliminating this unneeded check during emergency cases?
With Medibloc, we are open to a free and quick way of achieving data Interoperability through it open-source mode of development. Different applications can connect to the existing medical records for a patient through the Medibloc's API/SDK features that allow access for Interoperability of standardized data such as medical images or genetic information as well as unstandardized ones like medical records, laboratory results, test results eliminating the need for another unneeded background check.
Additionally, with this API/SDK links available, other developers can create other useful user apps that could be beneficial from the information retrieved from the system making it even more open to innovations and newer developments.
- High Accessibility
Accessibility is the highest restriction level attributed to the current system of medical data records as it is seen as highly confidential. But, what do we say of it if it becomes even highly protected from the real owners of the data?
With Medibloc, users own the rights and access to their information and are the only one to decide who, how, and when their information can be shared. With the decentralized system, users only need to connect to the internet anywhere they find their self to access their own medical information regardless of being in a medical institution or not. The style of holding user's data in a single institution would be disrupted and all-around access will be offered to the user.
I know the next question on how our mind would be how Medibloc plans to achieve all these functions and most importantly, how they would win over patients to convince them to abandon the existing system they are familiar with for this new system with comes with a lot of technical shift
Here we go:
Use of Cryptocurrency System
Firstly, with the digital currencies changing the face of social platforms and even corporate institutions, such a new yet impressive platform would need to incentivize users so as to gain presence and adoption. The Medibloc system as it is based on the blockchain technology will offer its users two distinct tokens - the MED and MDX coins which can be exchanged by the users within and outside the platform.
This system help to bring more users to the platform as they wouldn't just own rights to their data but also earn whenever they decide to share it. The platform is based on Medi Point (MP) system which accounts for the measurement of amount/extent of contribution or enh=gagement level of a user. This MP is untradeable but can only be used to influence the internal operations within the platform.
The more the MP a user has, the high his/her reputation on the platform and gives other users a way of identifying trusted users of the platform rather than the skill level of the person as a medical practitioner.
The Medi Token (MED) along with the MEDX are the transferable and tradeable coin of the platform. The MEDX can be used to purchase more MD to increase influence level on the platform.
Initially, the Medibloc project was to be launched on QTUM but the Medibloc decided to build its own blockchain in order to optimize its service and hence, users are currently airdropped with both MED and MEDX. So at the release of the main net, holder of MED and MEDX will get 0.5 MainNet coins per each of the token they hold.
Flexible and Categorized Account System
Another way Medibloc intend to penetrate into the system is by offering a flexible account system which states out how users are allowed an unprecedented level of control over their medical data.
In Medibloc, there will be different types of account available to a user. Accounts creation on the platform can be for General Users, Healthcare Providers (medical practitioners, institutions) and Data Researchers (medical researchers, healthcare apps/services) with different authority levels assigned to them.
With this kind of system, it gives every user a kind of hierarchy and recognition of authorities to share information with, people in need of their data as well as how to protect their data from some open users.
So, from the image above, we can distinguish between the data generated by each type of users. For access to data, Healthcare Providers and Data Researchers must show proof of their certification thus assuring general users of safe handling of their data if shared.
Recognized Partnership
Another important strategy of Medibloc is in their strength of Partnership. So far, Medibloc has been able to establish a relationship with bodies that will help push the presence and publicity of its services. They have collaborated with medical institutions amongst which are:
- Hanyang University Medical Center, a renowned medical institution in Korea.
- Kyung Hee University Dental Hospital, the third largest dental hospital in Korea.
- Deloitte
and many other data analysis related company. The illustration of MediBloc's partnerships with medical institutions can be seen below:
With these partnerships in place, users will be assured that the platform is reliable, original and trustworthy. These also give them a high reputation and shows that they have a high projection towards achieving their visions
So, what are the use cases of the Medibloc platform
- Personal Health Report
Forces of Flight. [Source: whitepaper]
They can now accurately understand individual health conditions, monitor their treatment schedules and also see how this indexed data of their medical treatment can help them build an enhanced care of individual health.
- Automatic Insurance Claim
With the Medibloc platform operating on a smart contract system, a patient does not need to call or visit the insurance company to feed them of information on their medical status as they can feed them information directly from the platform and automatically bill to the data to the patient’s insurance plan. Thu they don't need to submo=it a claim to see if some checkups will be covered in their insurance.
- P2P Healthcare Data Market
Medibloc offers a P2P Healthcare Data Market where data can be easily exchanged by users especially among medical researchers, institutions, and companies needing this information for research purposes. So, this gives the professional a go-to place for data exchange rather than using the general platform.
Thus through Medibloc:
Patients will now be aware of the value of healthcare data which will motivate them to actively participate in Medibloc. Medical researchers will be able to more easily access accurate and wholesome medical information, which could lead to an acceleration in the development of medical care and create a virtuous cycle structure that will return benefits to the patients.
Other use cases include;
- Telemedicine
- Social Networking Service, SNS for patients to access community support
- Clinical Trial and so on.
Check out this video that gives a short introduction about MediBloc:
The MediBloc Team:
The MediBloc roadmap:
Check out any of the following for more information & resources:
- MediBloc Website
- MediBloc WhitePaper (ENG)
- MediBloc FAQ
- MediBloc About (Contains informative graphics)
- MediBloc Medium
- MediBloc Twitter
- MediBloc Facebook
- MediBloc GitHub
- MediBloc Telegram
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