INTEROPERABILITY+ A step towards connected healthcare

Innovation Tagline:  

Healthcare Data

Complete.

Reliable.

Accurate.

Share trusted healthcare data. Collaborate securely among medical stakeholders. Provide precise and coordinated treatment. Enhance patient care and safety . Ensure all this with the only healthcare interoperability solution, Interoperability Plus.

Project Keywords:  #Healthcare #FHIR #Blockchain #SmartContract #SmartEHR #Hyperledger 2.X #Opensource #Analytics #Interoperability 

Project Members

1. nitishjoshi060291@outlook.com (Blockchain Expert/ Smart Contract Developer)
2.  NISHANT KAUSHIK (UI/UX designer , Front End Lead)
3.  Shrinidhi Kulkarni (DLT Expert / Blockchain Architect)
4. Tania Tavkar (Design and Digital lead) 

Project Description 

Traditionally, health records were written on paper, maintained in folders divided into sections based on the type of note, and only one copy was available. With advances in technology , Electronic Health Records (EHRs) changed the way the healthcare industry operated.  The use of EHRs has not only made patients’ medical information easier to read and available from almost any location in the world

EHRs are increasingly paperless and patient records are more accessible than ever before with data technology becoming increasingly portable and comprehensive. Current refinements in the medical records industry are aimed at the continued specialisation of systems to further streamline workflows, boost productivity and improve doctor-patient interactions.

However despite the potential benefits it provides, a long overhaul of EHR is overdue.

the largest problem with Electronic Health Records is the lack of interoperability between disparate systems. To have a full picture of a patient’s medical history, it is important that systems are able to communicate effectively with each other.

Interoperability plus is a custom-built healthcare blockchain and data warehousing solution, which will not only help achieve interoperability between the healthcare stakeholders but will also store EHR on a decentralised platform and lay the foundation for a proactive approach towards management of a patient’s health.

Interoperability plus will be built on Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain platform that will securely store health records and maintains data integrity with a single version of the truth. This trusted data can then be reliably shared among different medical organisations and individuals like doctors, pharmacists, and insurers, thus creating a collaborative framework. With this solution, the user will be able to travel along with his records For example, when a patient arrives at an emergency room, the care providers can exchange , examine and analyse patient data to get a complete clinical picture of the patient.

Interoperability plus provides the ability for clinicians to easily analyse patient data to discover new treatments, uncover safety issues, and identify unusual clinical findings. With the increased collection of personal health and lifestyle data and improved analytics, better insights can be generated earlier. This will allow us to “anticipate issues with unmatched precision,” identifying behaviours to avoid and actions to take, before risk factors even arise.

Ultimately what we have is a decentralised, proactive and planned integrated healthcare solution.

Problem

The widespread adoption of electronic health records should theoretically mean that a patient does not have to repeat his medical history for every new doctor and that this information is available instantly and securely to authorised users. Yet in today’s healthcare systems, the multiple fragmented systems lead to a redundant and inefficient patient experience.

• Too many disconnected systems
• For healthcare IT vendors with large health networks, inconsistent information across the network is a huge problem. Providers place different pieces of data in multiple, often disparate, places, and health IT departments waste countless hours searching for them.
• Medical data available in multiple fragmented systems lead to a redundant and inefficient patient experience

• Centralised Database
• Presently, EHR are stored on centralised databases in which medical data remains largely non-portable.
• Centralisation increases the security risk footprint and requires trust in a single authority.
• The responsibility for the data usually lies with the respective operator of the database and not with the patient, which makes easy access to all data and control over the transfer and use of personal data almost impossible for them

• Data quality and trust concerns
• With the current widespread management of medical data, there is no guarantee of the integrity or reliability of patient records and the risk of data loss or data misuse is great.

• Information Blocking
• A lack of shared data in healthcare is deeply disruptive to the flow of healthcare data and clinical decision making
• Clinicians want the ability to see patient information (data) no matter where the information originated.
• Clinicians also want the information to be available in ways which fit seamlessly within their day to day workflow.

All these challenges lead to one of the biggest downsides of healthcare industry – lack of interoperability. How to achieve interoperability among different healthcare stakeholders such as doctors, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists, and insurers poses and enable seamless exchange of data irrespective of the source of data poses as the most important challenge in the healthcare IT.

Why existing solutions are inadequate ?

• Improving healthcare interoperability is a top priority for health systems, clinicians, patients, and even legislators. Many electronic health record vendors claim their technologies are interoperable with other healthcare information systems.
• Though most healthcare providers agree that they need to adopt interoperability to improve data quality, a huge gap exists between what providers need to do and how successfully they are at doing it. That’s because they have to overcome a plethora of healthcare interoperability challenges along the way.
• Fundamental problems around implementing interoperability include standardization of terminology and normalization of data to those standards. One such standard is HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). It promises to enable healthcare enterprises have mechanism to exchange data with third parties outside their corporate network cost effectively and efficiently. FHIR supports structured healthcare data exchange over standard web via restful APIs.

While achieving and maintaining interoperability in healthcare has progressed in recent years, that progression presents new challenges. There are many barriers to success with healthcare interoperability. The first being, lack of true interoperability. For two EHR systems to be truly interoperable, they must be able to exchange and then use the data. For this to occur, the message transmitted must contain standardized coded data so that the receiving system can interpret it.

Other related challenges in the existing interoperability solutions :

• Organizational resistance to sharing data

Certain actors in the healthcare industry have a vested interest in not sharing data with other providers. Providers are of accused of information blocking and can run the risk of civil penalties of as much as $1M.

• Validating electronic requests for patient information

Maintaining the privacy and security of patient health records is critically important. Most providers are left to rely on the approval of their EHRs when sharing critical patient data.

• Centralised interoperability

Existing interoperable solutions rely on a centralised database are susceptible to traditional security problems such as Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and a single point of failure similar to traditional database systems.

• Accuracy of data

Providers place different pieces of data in multiple, often disparate, places, and health IT departments waste countless hours searching for them.

Competitive landscape

Existing Scenario of a Patient’s Journey

A Patient’s Journey with Interoperability Plus

Solution

Interoperability +

Interoperability plus is the first FHIR compliant blockchain healthcare solution that address the challenges of interoperability in healthcare today.

It will provide a decentralised healthcare platform built on Hyperledger Fabric that will fuse the current EHR with complementary capabilities.

With Interoperability Plus you will be able to keep all of the systems you already have and allow exchange of data without requiring full time developers !

It is basically a single, uniform system for the storage and movement of clinical data between applications and EHR.

Interoperability + provides a secure, FHIR compliant ,decentralised platform  that addresses the challenges of EHR interoperability and allows you to do a lot more than just being compliant.

Highlights of Interoperability Plus 

• Blockchain
  • Built on Hyperledger Fabric, Interoperability+ will lay the groundwork for a uniform EHR network.
• FHIR Complaint
  • Built on the FHIR standard, Interoperability+ ensures that communication of health systems across medical facilities can be done cost effectively and efficiently.
• Single dashboard: All healthcare data. One dashboard

The process of pulling data from different silos and have that data on a single unified network and interface will help establish a uniform dataset

Features of Interoperability Plus

1. Decentralised and FHIR compliant

• Unlike existing systems which are either FHIR compliant and/or centralised, Interoperability + is a decentralised truly interoperable solution built using the FHIR standard, making it the first of its kind.
• It will eliminate all the challenges posed by a centralised system and will revolutionise the healthcare industry.

1. Secure data

• Built on blockchain, Interoperability + would provide a trusted communication network and verify that data requests are appropriate and secure.
• Blockchain will ensure privacy and security of patient health records
• It will allow various stakeholders in the healthcare value-chain to share access their networks without compromising data security and integrity, by allowing them to track data provenance as well as any changes made.

1. Identity management

• Assured Identity verification and authentication of all participants.
• Streamlined approach to identifying clinicians and patients securely and accurately
• It will keep EHR information safe from unauthorised parties while it moves from one system to another

1. Accuracy of data

• Blockchain would enable someone looking at a patient’s medical record to know and trust each piece of data in that record.
• Ultimately interoperability+ will establish a trust in the security and reliability of the information provided.
• Blockchain’s ability to accurately log and automatically encrypt all healthcare transactions will allow anonymised medical record data to be widely available

1. Vendor independent access of medical data

• Patients do not need to investigate and choose a vendor-specific EHR platform to house their information and healthcare organisations do not need to decide who they are going to partner with.

Accomplishment and Team

This team is highly enthusiastic about the DLT and the blockchain . We believe blockchain should not be confined within the boundaries of cryptocurrencies, it has wider use cases which should be dig with time and serve to the humanity with transparent business models. This team has won many hackathons with their innovative solutions.