# ProjectName Proposal
### Team Members | CS98 21F
- Tanvir Islam
- Elorm Coch
- Kevin Cai
- Scott Crawshaw
- Dionysios "Gabe" Kotsonis
- Chibuzo Chiwike

<img src="https://github.com/dartmouth-cs98/21f-decentralized-health/raw/main/images/first_meeting.jpg" width="660" height="500">

## Problem Statement
There are large inefficiencies in the transfer of medical records between hospitals around the US due to the absence of a unified Medical Records database. This creates unnecessary administrative costs in the healthcare system.

## Stakeholders
The stakeholders for this undertaking would be those involved with both blockchain technologies and hospital records services. So that would mean the administrators of a hospital, miners who create the blocks on the blockchain, and the patients whom the data pertains to.

## Proposed Solution
We are proposing a web-application that allows hospitals and medical practices to write and read patient records and information to a blockchain. This information is immutable since it is stored on a distributed ledger and is cryptographically secured. Our web application would allow an end user to connect their blockchain wallet, giving them access to read their data. Similarly, administrators could connect their wallet, giving them the ability to read and write data for eligible patients. Our smart contracts would provide the blockchain capabilites neccesary for features such as permission granting, data writing, etc.

## Prior Work
[Medicalchain - the future of healthcare](https://medium.com/medicalchain/medicalchain-the-future-of-healthcare-5b130cbba439)
Medicalchain was built using a dual blockchain structure; one blockchain was built using Hyperledger Fabric and is used to control access to health records, while the other is "powered by an ERC20 token on Etherum and underlies all the applications and services on our platform." The hyperledger blockchain ensures necessary security and privacy, and the ethereum blockchain is used for computing and providing developers with a network ecosystem and applications they can contribute to using Medicalchain's "MedToken"

[MedRec](https://medrec.media.mit.edu)
MedRec is a blockchain, built on ethereum, that provides a decentralized way for providers and patients to store and retrieve healthcare data. They use smart contracts to help automate this process. The only difference is, MedRec uses a private blockchain, one that is hosted by only trusted, verified nodes. This effectively makes it a database comprised of a bunch of different hospitals, making it more exclusive. Our goal would be to perform a similar approach, but on a public blockchain instead

[Proof Work](https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/04/proof-work-aims-to-decentralize-medical-data-by-using-the-blockchain/)
Proof Work, is a company out of Tel Aviv whose main goal is to "allow patients to walk into a doctor's office with all their medical records already on their phone." Furthermore, Proof Work hopes to give patients more control over their medical data and how it is shared (transactions are also transparent, so they would know who is using their data and why)

## Impact
As it stands now, the access of medical data is very limited and ineffeciently kept. By storing it on the block-chain, patients have more control over who is allowed to view their data, along with the fact that centralizing this information on the block chain would simplify hospital record management. This would in effect make data management more efficient and easier. Better data sharing between healthcare providers means a higher probability of accurate diagnoses, more effective treatments, and the overall increased ability of healthcare organizations to deliver cost-effective care

## Success Metrics
Over the next few months, we hope to see our product used by someone or some clinic. Ultimately, we still have to figure out the kinks, legality, etc., but if we are able to create something that can be used by clinics/hospitals and receives positive feedback, we would consider our project a success.

## Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Our MVP should have the following functionality:
1. The ability for users (patients or care providers other than the patient's PCP) to quickly validate patient credentials and retrieve textual data from the blockchain
2. The ability for the patient to change write permissions for different hospitals/clinics
3. The ability for clinics/hospitals to access and write textual data to the blockchain

## Validation

- Term 1:
- Create admin and user profiles to test writing and reading to a blockchain.
- Reach out to clinics and survey whether they think this product is viable, ask for feedback
- Show our MVP to random students, hospital workers, anyone on the street to get feedback for the interface and ease of use
- Term 2:
- With our more fleshed-out product, test with users and clinics
- Run tests for speed and performance metrics, try to figure out average time taken to validate credentials retrieve data
- Test edge cases and cases where multiple people may be attempting to write to the blockchain at the same time (or many within the same time frame)

## Implementation Challenges
- Finding an effective way to implement blockchain with our web-based app
- Providing hospitals or clinics with an incentive to participate in our design and testing
- Getting access to patients data
- Navigating HIPAA rules and regulations, figure out liability issues