https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2aKnHSMy78
https://es.slideshare.net/MTeresaNietoGaln/healthchain-tfg-grado-ingeniera-informtica
The present document is part of the Final Project Degree of the Degree of Computer Engineering. This project comprises two fundamental parts: the analysis, design and implementation of a web application and this document, which is the technical part of the project.
Furthermore, part of this work is based on an internal project of research on the Blockchain technology. As we will see later Blockchain, in summary form, is a distributed database that has a set of blocks sorted chronologically. In those blocks the information is stored in full and consistent form. These features have been met because the blocks have a link between them, so that it is not possible to perform any kind of alteration.
The project will be based on analysis on a use case applying the technology previously introduced.
Currently, there are multiple use cases that can serve us as an example for the implementation of this technology, with the main purpose of solving problems to which they have not been remedied to date.
The selected use case, which will be the main leitmotif of the project, is the electronic health record (EHR). Up to the date, there is not yet a complete solution to address the challenges of this area in terms of privacy and security.
Besides, in other countries such as the United States, medical records are also managed by external entities to health, and sometimes the patient data are compromised.
In order to address this challenging environment, an application of Blockchain will be designed using a software engineering approach. A demonstrator of the blockchain technology will be presented through the development of an application taking advantage of the new functionalities
Blockchain is one of the most promising technologies up to the date. Along this document, an analysis about this technology and a case study on the field of e-Health will be presented and implemented to the demonstrate the capabilities of Blockchain-based technology.
The main motivation relies on the possibility of being able to solve a real problem using Blockchain technology. Furthermore, as a main secondary goal, the project must serve us to learn a new uprising technology that is still under development.
On the other hand, the problem to tackle with Blockchain technology is the secure management of the Electronic Health Record. Electronic health records are poorly managed in terms of security and privacy and, in general, do not belong to the patient. They are usually managed by doctors or insurance companies.
Besides, in countries like the United States of America, there is a problem regarding privacy. Once medical information is transferred to some entity, patients are not anymore owners of their health records implying that their own information can be used for third-party benefit.
Blockchain is seen as one of the newer and innovative technologies in the current technology landscape. However, as it will be presented later, although it has not yet gained much presence, Blockchain is a technology that emerged years ago and it is so popular.
This field of the computer science might be conceived like a type of Internet, an information technology at staggered technical levels and diverse classes of applications for any form of record of assets, inventories and exchange, including the economic area.
However, the concept of this technology goes far beyond. It is a kind of new paradigm organized and oriented to the discovery, evaluation and transfer of all types of data. As any intention of any existing technology so far, Blockchain was conceived with the aim of changing the way in which we interact with our world, transparent and timely.
This way to change the world, can be applied to many sectors such as financial and health sectors that are somehow quite connected since improvements in health management may imply reduction of costs and deliver of better services for the society. An important question is, how Blockchain works? Blockchain is a kind of distributed database that works like a ledger that stores the record of any type of transaction. Each transaction is verified by a consensus of the majority of the participants in the system.
That is why, each block contains the information you want to keep, either a transaction or, as we shall see later, a reference to a smart contract.
All blocks, sorted through a chronological order, which give rise to the chain have a hash of the previous block. Thus, a block has a reference to its previous block and once a transaction enters to the system, can no longer be deleted. It is therefore virtually impossible to alter a block that has been stored for a certain time in the chain. Blocks are continually growing, after a certain period of time, depending on the Blockchain network, a new block is created and it is possible to store the record of the most recent deal. For example, in a network Bitcoin writing of a block can take up to 10 minutes.
Bitcoin, the digital currency peer-to-peer, is the most popular application using this technology. This type of currency is somewhat controversial. However, the underlying technology, Blockchain, has worked at the moment without problems and has many successful use cases in both the financial and non-financial sectors.
The main benefits of Blockchain are much more than economic, is extend to the political, science, social, health. On the other hand, the capacity technology of Blockchain is being exploited by groups specific to addressing problems of the world real. For example, the coordination, the storage of records and the irrevocability of transactions using this technology are characteristics that could be instrumental in the improvement of society. As an idea, it could provide repositories of public records for all types of societies, including the registration of documents, events, identities and goods. This means that all potential tangible assets (such as cars and houses) and digital assets may be registered and made a transaction in the network Blockchain.
Many blockchain applications can be found but most of them are currently focusing on digital banking.
- Peer to peer pays
Up to the date, all types of bank stocks entail too run time. For example, if an entity wants to make a shipment of money to an entity B, due to the current situation, this process would take days to run. Using blockchain intermediaries would be eliminated so that the time would diminish greatly and, on the other hand, the associate costs also would descend.
- Internet of things (IoT)
IoT systems are based on models of communication centralized, using the paradigm known as client-server. Using a decentralized model, using peer to peer protocol, it would provide a new communications architecture and would reduce significantly the costs associated with the installation and the maintenance of big centralized data centres.
- Voting Systems
Electronic voting systems suffer a great defect in design: to use a centralized system. This implies that only there is a provider that controls the code, the database and the outputs of the system. Using Blockchain as a secure database and transparent would solve this problem and could register the votes of a reliable way.
- Decentralized Markets
A decentralized market is a structure of market that consists of a network of different devices that allow to create a market without a centralized place. This way, the technology offers to the buyers the access to several offers, making the direct dealing possible with other distributors.
- Land registry
Currently, the records of the property have some scourges such as fraud and corruption. The justification for the application of Blockchain to this field implies, decrease the costs of performing the property register, achieve transparency and security, eliminating corruption and fraud in the process and the most important, provide fastness title.
- Digitization of assets and documents
With the increase number of data types and formats, the need to integrate and share data through systems has become essential. For the greater part of organizations, this involves the balance delicate of those processes that move data between systems.
- Authentication of assets
The life future of goods can be drastically modified, through the existence of a record that contains its cycle of life and allow his tracking of the chain of supply.
The designed application can mark one earlier and one later in the management of the electronic health records. The management of the health sector has seen a great evolution in recent years, from physical management to digital management.
The problem, so far, is that the patient has no access to her own record, only it is managed by the doctors in Spain and by the same ones and the insurers in other countries such as the United States.
With the design and use of this application, the electronic health record would belong to the patient and all the changes that he will make will be conducted in a transparent and full manner.
The development of this project was born as an idea to make an application with a real use case using a new technology that has planned a great future, Blockchain.
Blockchain is still under study and development. There are some emerging Blockchain platforms that are still under development. On the other hand, there also are applications with a good state of maturity.
Blockchain seems to be the next revolution as it was Internet at the moment of its birth. All the characteristics that we have been analyzing along this project are very necessary features to boost digital economy and health (and many other sectors) reducing costs and deliverying high-quality and cost-effective services.