FAQ: 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.

To read the full text of the HC-SIG Charter, please view here.

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). Here's how to get your LFID.

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 attend an upcoming HC-SIG General Meeting, check out our connect details here.

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.