Healthcare Embodiment of Blockchain

As per my earlier articles, the use of Blockchain has been established. There are three basic ingredients we need to have in a Blockchain for the Healthcare domain. Nodes or peers, who are to use Blockchain, a consensus and security for the data. There is a need of Operational Security of a Blockchain, as it consists data that is related to all stakeholders, who are using the Blockchain executing some Smartcontract.

These peers are the Patients, Doctors, Pharmacists, Healthcare Service Providers in this article for better understanding of a real scenario. The common thread between all of these peers is a "Prescription". As a patient has been given certain medication by the doctor, it is Pharmacist's duty (legitimate) to provide the medication, as per the prescription, however, to prevent any malicious activity by any related peer cannot be prevented, if there is no consensus mechanism in place.

For example a patient is being treated by the Doctor in the State of Virginia, gets the medication from the pharmacy in same State, and later travels to California for a Time-Off. The Nurse, who is to serve this patient at California should follow the prescribed time of the medicine dispensing, however, dispense it according to times mentioned on the prescription 9 am, 3 pm & later 9 pm. where as the patient is from Eastern Time Zone and will be traveling back in 3 days time. In reality this is not malicious activity, however this is misaligned activity of medicine dispensing, and can create trouble for the patient.

A Smartcontract is distributed to the network of peers to adhere the policies. Each block that is stored in the Blockchain record has a timestamp associated in chronological order. Each of the block runs against the Smartcontract for the accuracy of the policies following checkpoint for rules implementation on the transaction. This process allows all peers to establish a consensus. Once all peers agree to the terms and conditions of the SmartContract, it is executed and the transaction is finalized.

The consensus is a must on block by block basis. There are several ways we can reach to this consensus between peers. Few are:

• Proof of Work
• Proof of Elapsed Time
• Kafka/ZooKeeper & more

According to Tom Vice (Chairman, President and CEO, Aerion Supersonic | Member, Board Of Directors, Local Motors Industries) "I believe blockchain technology used in the method you purpose makes sense. I would also recommend that you consider broadening your consideration however. Harmful drug interactions often occur. Doctors and pharmacists do the best they can, however mistakes happen. With blockchain and AI, these errors can be greatly reduced. I would suggest that when a prescription is ordered, all of the patient’s drug usage (prescribed and non-prescribed), patient history, and patient vitals are analyzed by AI systems for drug interaction issues.".

Note: The author is a Research Scientist and also Professor of Blockchain System Architecture.