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HC-SIG CharterFAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
This page is intended to serve as a resource to HC-SIG members with questions about the structure and operations of the organization. As an HC-SIG member, feel free to add to this growing list of questions/answers to better serve membership.
What’s the purpose of the Hyperledger HC-SIG?
Hyperledger, as part of the Linux Foundation, provides technology leaders a uniquely open and collaborative international community from which to develop, validate, and field enterprise-grade blockchain technology solutions. It is the mandate of this Special Interest Group, the Hyperledger Healthcare Special Interest Group (HC-SIG), to represent healthcare professionals and technologists, and globally unite in advancing the state of the healthcare industry through the implementation of technology solutions using blockchain technologies in general, and the umbrella of Hyperledger frameworks and toolsets in specific.
Full Text of HC-SIG Charter
To review To read the full text of the HC-SIG Charter, please view here.
Mission & Scope
The mission of the HC-SIG shall be to:
Identify specific opportunities where the application of blockchain technologies can meaningfully advance the state of the healthcare industry
Provide a foundation for real world use case identification, blockchain technology alignment, and operational validation of technology fit for purpose
Provide recommendations for the ethical use and implications of blockchain technologies
Promote the community education of, and participation in blockchain technologies, policies, and protocols
Serve as an open channel of communication between the membership of this Special Interest Group and the leadership of Hyperledger to inform leadership on prospective improvements of Hyperledger frameworks and toolsets, within the context of the healthcare industry
The scope of the HC-SIG shall include:
The identification, development, and promotion of use cases, pilots, proofs of concept (POCs), proofs of value (POVs), and in certain cases, minimum viable products (MVPs) to educate and demonstrate the value of applicable blockchain technologies solutions in healthcare. Some examples of in-scope capability areas include, but are not limited to:
Distributed patient trust tools using self-sovereign identity (SSI)
Incentivization using tokenization and/or cryptocurrency technologies to encourage member participation within a blockchain technologies-enabled solution
Interoperability solutions using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) to interconnect with datasets longitudinally across disparate healthcare systems
The identification, documentation, and promotion of blockchain technologies solutions best practices, as applied in a healthcare industry context
The sharing of stories within and across membership boundaries: successes, failures, lessons learned, opportunities and challenges
The identification of existing or needed common critical software components as they relate to blockchain solutions that would address the particular needs of the healthcare industry
The identification and promotion of conferences or related social networking opportunities (e.g., speaking engagements) to gain experiences outside of this Special Interest Group
The identification and promotion of healthcare industry and related challenges and competitions designed to convene team(s) internal to this Special Interest Group for the purposes of driving focus and common purpose to a goal(s) recognized as beneficial to the whole of the Special Interest Group
The education of both membership and the community on blockchain technologies, policies, and protocols as they relate to the healthcare industry
Resources
Do I need to be a Hyperledger member?
No, this group is intended to promote the exploration of blockchain applications in healthcare and is open to everyone interested in working towards solutions in this area. As Hyperledger is a project of the larger Linux Foundation, we are an open source, open community collaboration.
If you're interested in openly editing these wiki pages, or conversing with other Hyperledger community members through our email list (listserv) or chat channel (Rocket.Chat), you may want to consider signing up for a free Linux Foundation ID (LFID)
Chat: https://chat.hyperledger.org/channel/healthcare-sig
Github: https://github.com/hyperledger
Wiki: https://wiki.hyperledger.org
HC-SIG Wiki: https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/HCSIG
Public lists: https://lists.hyperledger.org
Meetings: https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/HYP/Calendar+of+Public+Meetings
Hyperledger class: Blockchain for Business - An Introduction to Hyperledger Technologies
Linux Foundation Antitrust reminder: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy
Meetings
General Meetings
HC-SIG General Meetings are scheduled twice monthly, and serves to provide a summary of membership activities within the SIG, as well as a summary "roll up" of active HC-SIG teams and subgroups presented by team and subgroup leads. HC-SIG General Meeting archived videos/notes and upcoming agendas are available here.
Subgroup Meetings
Subgroups are formalized teams of HC-SIG members with an express interest in developing solutions around specific topics. Subgroups are required to develop a charter, meet regularly, and report the status of their efforts at every HC-SIG General Meeting. In short, HC-SIG subgroups is where the interesting work of this SIG is accomplished. The HC-SIG currently maintains three subgroups:
Patient Subgroup
The mission of this group is to focus on problems related to healthcare patients and to facilitate understanding and adoption of distributed ledger technologies within healthcare payer industry by identifying specific opportunities where the application of blockchain technologies can be meaningful.
For more information, see the Patient Subgroup page here.
Payer Subgroup
The mission of this group is to focus on problems related to payer industry and to facilitate adoption of blockchain technologies within healthcare payer industry by identifying specific opportunities where the application of blockchain technologies can be meaningful.
For more information, see the Payer Subgroup page here.
Healthcare Interoperability Subgroup
It is the mission of this subgroup to demonstrate how health information can be made interoperable and exchanged with equal meaning amongst all participants.
The problem of portability for healthcare information is not just a problem in the US, and all solutions provided by this sub-group are meant to be universal and will source existing technologies from international healthcare institutions.
For more information, see the Healthcare Interoperability Subgroup page here.
Links to Ongoing Work
HC-SIG subgroups are key the developing actionable solutions within this SIG: each subgroup focussed on a special area of interest driven by their charter/mission statement.
For specific details on the work being done within the HC-SIG, see the work descriptions of our HC-SIG Subgroups (described above).
Links to External Resources
What blockchain technologies topics do you cover?
This is a great question which comes up often. The term blockchain can be defined as three independent core technologies often implemented in a complementary fashion:
- Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
- Self-Sovereign Identity Management (SSI)
- Cryptocurrency/crypto-tokens
Depending on the context of the project or discussions that HC-SIG membership has, or the work being done through our HC-SIG Subgroups, any three of these areas might be utilized at any given time. So the short answer is: it really depends.
Where do HC-SIG conversations take place?
We host three different ways for our membership to interact:
- Email, via our HC-SIG listserv
- In real-time chat, via our chat channel, hosted on Rocket.Chat
- Videoconferencing, using Zoom. We host several different regular Zoom video conferences, including:
- HC-SIG General Meetings
- HC-SIG Subgroup Meetings
How do I participate in an HC-SIG Zoom video conference?
Check out our Hyperledger Events Calendar for upcoming events. These events will provide you with specific connect details for joining a meeting either by phone, or through your computer.
If you're planning to attend an upcoming HC-SIG General Meeting, check out our connect details here.
I can't seem to log into Rocket.Chat. What am I doing wrong?
You're probably doing nothing wrong. In fact, there are several bugs in Rocket.Chat that might be the cause of your problems. Check out our log in procedure here.
Resources
New to Hyperledger? You'll need a Linux Foundation ID (LFID) to edit our wiki pages and chat on Hyperledger channels. Here's how to get your LFID
Stay Informed. Get on our email list, and receive regular updates to HC-SIG meetings and events
Additional Resources:
HC-SIG membership regularly provides updates to blockchain technologies resources within the industry and they are discovered and evolve.
An excellent page to review is the Research Resources page, which is updated regularly.
HC-SIG Membership Directory
HC-SIG members represent a very wide diversity of healthcare and technology professionals worldwide. This SIG maintains a directory that can be edited directly by HC-SIG members.
View the HC-SIG Membership Directory here.