SBIR Phase I: Building Trust Between Patients and Providers: Adapting Blockchain Technology to Electronic Health Records Systems

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is researching, designing and identifying an innovative, secure, new way to store and analyze electronic health records on the distributed ledger, or blockchain. The project goal is determining how to redefine the incentive model of a distributed ledger system focused on electronic health records. By beginning work on how medical records can securely, accurately and efficiently be stored in a smart contract platform, and how those records can then be analyzed to help treat patients, we strive to design solutions that lend themselves not only to the coordinated and interoperable storage of personal health records, but also to create opportunity for more reliable analytics and machine learning applications related to treatment, survivability rates and discovery of insights leading to improvement in long-term care of patients. With a $28 billion healthcare industry, combined with a fairly new, immature and constantly evolving landscape for distributed ledger technology, we strive to research a clearer path to leveraging these tools to ultimately maintain security, glean better healthcare insights and provide better patient care. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to research the design and implementation of an electronic health record management system on top of an existing permissioned distributed ledger architecture. There are three main technical challenges overcome in this effort, which relate to the dataset and implications: first, the challenge in securing patient data and ensuring private data remains private; secondly, system scalability, interoperability, and cost- effectiveness; third, incentivizing stakeholders and building network effect. Our objectives are to design, investigate and ultimately propose a blockchain-driven EHR system designed around the defined user population, ensuring the three challenges have applicable solutions. The project result will be a research-driven white paper and pilot design, focused on a proposed system architecture and mechanisms to ensure data privacy and HIPAA compliance, as well as a proof of concept for the ledger infrastructure. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.