A PEP-talk for personalised healthcare.
Lucien Engelen
Health(care) Strategy & Digital Transformation Maven. International Ambassador Nursing Innovation. (im)Patient. Speaker. Makes things happen.
Update Sept. 30 : The technology described below is now being used in a partnership with Verily (Google/Alphabet) Radboud University Medical Center and Radboud University in a Comprehensive, Observational study of Parkinson's Disease.
Polymorphic Encryption and Pseudonymisation for Personalised Healthcare yes, that's right PEP for short. One might win a game of Scrabble with it. But the truth is it is a very serious matter. Where more is security an important issue than in (y)our health(care) data ?
My colleague researchers, in computer security and privacy, at Radboud University have developed an innovative cryptographic methodology for privacy-friendly personalised healthcare. It is based on what is called Polymorphic Encryption and Pseudonymisation, abbreviated as PEP. This PEP framework can securely handle at the same time :
(a) identifyable medical data for the diagnosis and treatment of individual patients,(b) pseudonymised patient data for large scale medical research, and(c) patient data from multiple sources, including in particular(wearable) self-measurement devices and apps.
Hence this PEP approachis ideally suited for combining personalised care and statistical (bigdata) medical research. It is a prime example of data protection by design and default, as demanded in the tough new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
One of the security researcher involved, Prof. Bart Jacobs says: "stop whining about the GDPR and look at what modern crypto can do for you''. With techniques like PEP one can ensure high levels of trust so that patients are willing to make their medical data available for research purposes.
The researchers have written an extensive whitepaper about PEP, explaining the relevant ideas both for technical and non-technicalaudiences. The paper is available at: https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/411 be ware only for real techies ;-)
Currently, the PEP framework is being implemented and developed into an open standard, supported by open source software. It will be tested in a real-life medical research project at our Radboud University Medical Center. The researchers are open to cooperate with anyone in the sector who is serious about patient data protection and medical research.
On a sidenote one could learn more about Prof. Bart Jacobs and his vision from his talk at TEDxRadboudU i organised on behalf of our University in 2013.
Is this an alternative to blockchain?
Human Health & Performance Risk Qualification expert. SDG, QoL(Maslow) Datasource Need Value Chain impact Assessment Evangelist. "No impact no Trust, no payment"
8 年As European Digital Peer Patient Alliance (EuDiPPA) and working closly with the European Platform for Patient Organisations', Science and Industry (EPPOSI) we work on the Citizen Patient health Data continuum governance of data and communication with all the stakeholders. This means SHARED Intelectual Property (IP) validated with Rapid Effectiveness Assessments (REA) so the value chain can clear be followed with the value adding or taking of each stakeholder/player visable. FAIR HEALTH DATA SHARING no copyright but privacy directive and ownerhip sharing in a win win partnership. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/eudippaepposi-communication-governance-shared-health-related-wubbe
Global Executive & Thought Leadership Communications
8 年Nice work Lucien trust was key but will be even more key for the future or healthcare where digital plays an important role.
Manager - AR operations at Access Healthcare PVT LTD
8 年It's really helpful to protect patients data. I would appreciate Radboud University for this is research.
Retired after 38 years on Mainframe and Client/Server
8 年The report also said that I was a a "candidate for bone marrow replacement". I didn't see any connection made to a specific test result, so I assume that there is something on the report that a Doctor would recognize as the justification. I want to play an educated part of my Health Care decisions, but realize that there will still be heavy reliance on a Doctor that you trust.