Three Recent Events to Make Us Consider Blockchain for Healthcare Data Management
These scenarios only highlight the importance of data immutability and, more broadly, data transparency in the modern age.
Author
Hao Sen Andrew Fang | SingHealth Polyclinics, SingHealth, Singapore; SingHealth Duke-NUS, Singapore, andrew.fang.h.s@singhealth.com.sg
As an observer of current affairs with a keen interest in blockchain, it has already been a very eventful start to the year. For one, the Bitcoin price made new all-time highs, surpassing US$40,000 and triggering significant media buzz. Yet amid all the hype of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices, I found three major news events to be particularly relevant and instructive for the blockchain healthcare community, especially with regard to data management. In this blog, I wish to share my brief thoughts on these recent events.
- Dispute over U.S. presidential election votes
As results from the recent U.S. presidential election were announced, there were already numerous legal challenges to the results citing voter fraud. The Wall Street Journal also reported an appeal made to Georgia’s top election official to re-calculate the state’s results.1 Dispute over electoral results is not unprecedented, and it reveals the possibility of data manipulation while more importantly underscoring the need for better transparency in data provenance.
In the healthcare context, it is also not hard to imagine a central authority altering health data for its own benefit — such as to report glowing health statistics. In fact, corruption in health systems is real and there are anti-corruption efforts being undertaken by the global health community to address them.2 Even in scenarios where there is no malicious intent, the current lack of transparency in which most health data are collected, analyzed, and reported has raised questions and doubts. We had already witnessed this first-hand in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when erratic numbers coming out of Wuhan evoked public doubt and distrust.3 These scenarios only highlight the importance of data immutability and, more broadly, data transparency in the modern age.
- Whatsapp announces changes in privacy policy
The issue of data privacy recently came under the spotlight, triggered by the privacy policy changes of messaging app Whatsapp.4 Although Whatsapp has since clarified that its new terms will not allow it to access users’ messages, its announcement had users flocking to rival messaging apps perceived as having better privacy features. This unexpectedly strong collective response indicates a deep societal expectation for data privacy. A global survey conducted by Ipsos provides a more quantitative sense of consumers’ worries, showing roughly one-third of the respondents saying they knew little or nothing about how much their personal information is used by companies or governments, and with only a minority (39%) of them trusting their national government.5
Currently, health data privacy is protected by law such as the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) depending on jurisdiction. While it is reassuring to know there are such laws in place, the Whatsapp move demonstrates how the protections still fall short. It is not hard to imagine a commercially driven healthcare organization selling patient data (even if it is de-identified) for profit, without explicit knowledge of its patients. To address this, there are growing calls to rethink the current approach of data privacy protection to that of data ownership, including lawmakers.6 In this proposed model, healthcare organizations may license the use of patient data and patients earn a dividend from the use of their data. Such a model could eliminate concerns of data privacy as any use of the data would need patients’ explicit consent. In addition, such a model would also offer a more equitable relationship for patients and healthcare organizations with regard to the value generated from the data.
- Robinhood abruptly halts services
Amid a Reddit driven rally of certain company stocks including GameStop and AMC, consumer investment platform Robinhood abruptly suspended trading of those stocks.
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