Beyond Bitcoin: potential applications of blockchain technology in dermatology

Hyperledger Healthchain: Patient-Centric IPFS-Based Storage of Health Records

Blockchain-based electronic health system growth is hindered by privacy, confidentiality, and security. By protecting against them, this research aims to develop cybersecurity measurement approaches to ensure the security and privacy of patient information using blockchain technology in healthcare. Blockchains need huge resources to store big data. This paper presents an innovative solution, namely patient-centric healthcare data management (PCHDM). It comprises the following: (i) in an on-chain health record database, hashes of health records are stored as health record chains in Hyperledger fabric, and (ii) off-chain solutions that encrypt actual health data and store it securely over the interplanetary file system (IPFS) which is the decentralized cloud storage system that ensures scalability, confidentiality, and resolves the problem of blockchain data storage. A security smart contract hosted through container technology with Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus ensures patient privacy by verifying patient preferences before sharing health records. The Distributed Ledger technology performance is tested under hyper ledger caliper benchmarks in terms of transaction latency, resource utilization, and transaction per second. The model provides stakeholders with increased confidence in collaborating and sharing their health records.

A Hybrid Blockchain Model for Trusted Data of Supply Chain Finance

Supply chain finance is an effective way to solve the problem of capital turnover of construction enterprises and stabilize economic growth under epidemic situation. Blockchain technology can solve the problems in the current supply chain finance business, such as incorrect information between banks and enterprises, lack of visibility in transaction process, and possible joint fraud in the core enterprise model. However, it still has problems such as inconvenient information verification, data fraud, and difficulty to achieve a balance between efficiency, security and cost. This paper presents a hybrid chain model combining PANDA (a consensus algorithm based on public chain) and X-Alliance (a consensus algorithm based on alliance chain). Such proposed hybrid chain model can process the transaction of each account in parallel, asynchronize from other unrelated accounts in the network, provide more reliable data storage and authority management, and ensure the ownership of change tracking data, which has higher performance and lower protection cost while ensuring data security and privacy security. According to the data of network crawling, the experimental results show that the throughput can reach 1200tps when four nodes are deployed. The model serves for the supply chain financial data management of engineering projects, making trade authenticity review, risk assessment and credit transmission of core enterprises more efficient. On this basis, each participant can carry out analysis and give early warning of capital flow, timely analyze and calculate the authenticity of transaction background. The proposed method provides a reference for the normal operation of the project fund under the COVID-19 epidemic.

Could Blockchain Technology Empower Patients, Improve Education, and Boost Research in Radiology Departments? An Open Question for Future Applications

Blockchain can be considered as a digital database of cryptographically validated transactions stored as blocks of data. Copies of the database are distributed on a peer-to-peer network adhering to a consensus protocol for authentication of new blocks into the chain. While confined to financial applications in the past, this technology is quickly becoming a hot topic in healthcare and scientific research. Potential applications in radiology range from upgraded monitoring of training milestones achievement for residents to improved control of clinical imaging data and easier creation of secure shared databases.

Blockchain-Based Distributed Patient-Centric Image Management System

In recent years, many researchers have focused on developing a feasible solution for storing and exchanging medical images in the field of health care. Current practices are deployed on cloud-based centralized data centers, which increase maintenance costs, require massive storage space, and raise privacy concerns about sharing information over a network. Therefore, it is important to design a framework to enable sharing and storing of big medical data efficiently within a trustless environment. In the present paper, we propose a novel proof-of-concept design for a distributed patient-centric image management (PCIM) system that is aimed to ensure safety and control of patient private data without using a centralized infrastructure. In this system, we employed an emerging Ethereum blockchain and a distributed file system technology called Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS). Then, we implemented an Ethereum smart contract called the patient-centric access control protocol to enable a distributed and trustworthy access control policy. IPFS provides the means for decentralized storage of medical images with global accessibility. We describe how the PCIM system architecture facilitates the distributed and secured patient-centric data access across multiple entities such as hospitals, patients, and image requestors. Finally, we deployed a smart contract prototype on an Ethereum testnet blockchain and evaluated the proposed framework within the Windows environment. The evaluation results demonstrated that the proposed scheme is efficient and feasible.

Augmented reality in dermatology: Are we ready for AR?

Augmented reality (AR) refers to a group of technologies that capture, analyze, and superimpose digital information onto the real world. This information gives health care providers unique and useful perspectives that can enhance patient care. AR has been utilized in selected scenarios in health care for several decades, notably laparoscopic surgery and vein finding. In recent years, improved wireless technologies, computing power, and analytics are leading to rapid growth in the AR industry. Novel health care-specific use cases are rapidly being introduced with the potential to widely affect clinical care, particularly in dermatology because of the visual nature of the field. In this article, we define AR, profile clinical and educational uses of AR in dermatology, and discuss key policy considerations for the safe and appropriate use of this emerging technology.