NFT-Based EHR Tokenization for Interoperability and Security
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current electronic health record (EHR) systems face challenges such as fragmentation, lack of standardization, security issues, and inefficiencies in data access and sharing, leading to increased costs, resource consumption, and potential health risks due to mismatched records and delayed treatments.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a non-fungible token (NFT) based ecosystem using private blockchain technologies and smart contracts to digitize and secure EHRs, enabling secure access, interoperability, and real-time updates while reducing redundant processes and enhancing patient control over their data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If EHRs are maintained by individual healthcare providers using separate systems, then each provider can control their own data, but compatibility and interworking issues arise making it difficult to streamline workflows and support care-related activities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces NFTs as intermediary tokens that represent EHR data ownership and access rights. These tokens enable secure data sharing between different healthcare providers while maintaining patient control, resolving the contradiction between data security and interoperability by providing a standardized mediation layer.
Solution Approach 2:
The NFT-based EHR system creates a universal token standard that can be used across different healthcare providers and systems. This multi-functional approach allows the same NFT structure to serve multiple purposes: data ownership verification, access control, and seamless interoperability between diverse healthcare systems.
2Productivity
If EHR data is shared across multiple healthcare providers, then workflow streamlining and care coordination improve, but security risks and data access control challenges increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality control by allowing different levels of data access permissions for different healthcare providers. Each NFT can encode specific access rights for different entities, enabling fine-grained control over who can view or modify specific portions of EHR data while maintaining overall system security.
Solution Approach 2:
The NFT-based system provides feedback mechanisms through smart contracts that automatically track and record data access transactions. This creates an audit trail that enhances security monitoring and allows real-time control over data sharing, reducing security risks while enabling productive collaboration.
3Ease of manufacture
If traditional EHR systems are used without tokenization, then implementation is simpler, but data consistency, security, and patient control are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses NFTs as digital copies or representations of EHR data ownership rights without duplicating the actual medical records. This approach maintains data consistency by referencing a single source of truth while enabling multiple authorized access points, thus improving security without significantly complicating implementation.
4Reliability
If EHR access requires multiple separate systems and processes, then data security can be maintained, but resource consumption increases and access delays occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple security verification processes into a single NFT-based access control mechanism. Instead of requiring separate authentication systems for each healthcare provider, the NFT consolidates ownership verification and access permission checks into one unified token, reducing access time and resource consumption while maintaining security.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure generally relates to the fields of computing, data processing, cryptography, blockchain technologies, tokenization and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), identity verification, account verification, information security (InfoSec), and fraud prevention technologies, and in particular, to technologies for creating NFTs for electronic health records (EHR). An EHR NFT service receives a set of user data items associated with a user, and verifies each user data item of the set of user data items. The EHR NFT service generates a set of hashes, wherein each hash in the set of hashes corresponds to a verified user data item in the set of user data items. The EHR NFT service mints an EHR NFT that includes each hash in the set of hashes and updates a smart contract to include the EHR NFT. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.