“Are you storing healthcare data on the blockchain?” That’s a very common question we get at SimplyVital Health about our data ecosystem, Health Nexus. To put it plainly — NO, we are NOT storing healthcare data on the blockchain.

What we are doing is much, much cooler.

Instead of storing healthcare data on the blockchain, we are using the blockchain to govern access to that data through our key pair system, which is the heart of Health Nexus. In this way we can allow healthcare providers to share stored data with each other, even if they are using different storage systems. We modeled this system off the research group MedRec from MIT, which implemented a similar tool for Beth Israel Hospital.

This system works by allowing users to create permissioned “keys” on the blockchain. These keys store a URL pointing to specific data, with access governed by rules such as an expiration date or allowable actions. Our key pair system allows for the creation of children keys that can be granted to other users, such as healthcare providers, allowing easy and secure access to that data.

For example, a hospital can create a key pointing to the data for a recent patient who just underwent knee surgery. In that key they include a hash of the data for verification, an expiration date, and read access. They then create a child key and give that key to the rehab center their patient is attending, giving that rehab center read access to the patient’s data until the expiration date. This information can all be audited, allowing the original hospital to prove it granted the rehab center access to patient data.

Our key pair system utilizes audited smart contracts to accomplish this, and our smart contracts can be viewed via Github repo. We have specifically created a meta data field to allow users to set their own permissions and rules going forward to ensure our contracts are developer friendly to encourage the creation of new healthcare solutions on Health Nexus.

Going forward we are looking to build this into the protocol level. We are doing this because the large utility value of this ensures its use, and by including it at the protocol level we can help ensure a better built, defined and efficient system. We will start by specifically including data fields in the accounts to keep track and maintain the keys to insure greater efficiency.

Long story short, this key system will allow for simplified and secure data sharing of sensitive data without requiring all providers to share storage systems. It has already been tested at Beth Israel Hospital and version 1.0 is ready to go!