Please describe your proposed solution.
Before anything, can you tell me the significance of Medical Records Rights / Ownership? Why does this matter?
Sure. To illustrate it simply, suppose you visit your doctor today, it is likely that your doctor will input your record into a EMR (electronic medical records) system. Some systems even allow you to view/access your records in a web portal or a mobile app. In this case, have you ever thought if your health information belongs to you or to your doctor?
While it is true that the doctor was the one who created the data, this medical records contain your information and were actually created specifically for you. So, who has the rights to it?
Interesting, any consensus yet on who owns which?
Hmmm, that's actually the major challenge currently as described further in this article from Forbes. In US, there are different laws per state regarding medical records ownership, see here details.
Ok, if this remains a challenge, what are you trying to do differently to address this?
Thanks for asking! The Hippocrades Team believes that medical records ownership can be addressed by providing specific shared rights and privileges to the 'owners'. This is previously impossible to do, but thanks to blockchain and other cryptographic protocols, this can now be set and automated.
I'd like to know more of this, where do I see details?
We have written a white paper on it here.
Let's say medical records rights and ownership are addressed, what then? Any good use case for it?
Well, for one, it is great for a Healthcare Information Exchange platform since there are clear rights who can access the records while remaining auditable. Second, it gives a patient an opportunity to earn from his/her data. This is a multibillion dollar sector for which patients (whose data are being sold) can profit from. See Time article here.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Specifically, tell me how Medical Records Rights Protocol will help for a future wide-scale Cardano adoption in Africa?
It is important to note that this proposal is part of the Hippocrades Healthcare Infrastructure and Protocol project. Many parts of Hippocrades are also funded by Catalyst (see links below).
Hippocrades would allow health facilities, health providers, doctors, and patients to use healthcare apps and participate in a decentralized healthcare exchange. If successful, this has a potential of generating hundreds of thousand (if not millions) of transactions in a regular basis and benefiting not just the healthcare sector in Africa but the Cardano blockchain as well.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
<u>Health Core is Already Built</u>
The core of this healthcare platform is DONE, something we have been working on since 2016. Thus, the foundation is already set up, we just need to build the Medical Records Ownership / Rights Protocol on top of this.
Existing Healthcare APIs of Hippocrades will be expanded with new ones from this protocol.
<u>Potential Risk</u>
In terms of capabilities, our team has shown that we can deliver. The potential challenge could be the setting of the deliverables timeline. There are some external factors that may be overlooked during planning (in a previous project, couple of our team members got Covid, for example).
To mitigate this, we will propose a more conservative timeline of activities in this proposal in consideration of potential factors that can cause delay.