Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay, Vice President- Customer Experience, Dhiway emphasises that Web 3.0 represents a collection of technologies which enable the data subject to have more control over the data about themselves – this could include the data, the metadata and the contextual metadata which information processors use. This simple pivot from centralised data management to a system that provides more agency is essential to understand in the context of patient records
The focus on patient-centricity has been a critical area that has helped transform healthcare delivery. Healthcare service providers are now placing patients at the centre of the ecosystem, thus emphasising their needs, preferences and active participation in decision-making. The delivery of healthcare is associated with large volumes of structured and unstructured data. Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), records from visits and consultations and every other kind of transactional engagement (billing, insurance, etc) are the foundation of being able to deliver precise and complete services to the patient.
The challenge with information and data in this sector is that it is contextual. So, some baseline transformation operations, such as filtering, obfuscation and anonymisation, must meet the standards for good data governance. Additionally, patient data is also a valuable input to research activities – hence, ensuring high-quality datasets is crucial as they are linked to innovative practices.
Like many practices, patient centricity is best thought about as a philosophy and cultural shift adopted at an organisational level. This ensures that it is not reduced to a “concept, ” and tangible measures are deployed to ensure the patient has an active presence. This brings forth a set of challenges around the health data for the patient, which may be split across multiple information silos and systems. To embark on a journey of patient-centricity, it is also necessary to empower the patient with information and manage the growth threats to information architecture through cyberattacks and data breaches.
Additionally, when the patient has more access, control and governance over their data – it is also necessary to factor into the design concepts such as guardianship and delegation – where the patient can identify and authorise one or more individuals to act on their behalf because of legal reasons necessitating from medical conditions. In all of this, an essential aspect is the recording and management of consent provided to various information notifications designed to include and involve the patient in the delivery of health services.
Web 3.0 represents a collection of technologies which enable the data subject to have more control over the data about themselves – this could include the data, the metadata and the contextual metadata which information processors use. This simple pivot from centralised data management to a system that provides more agency is essential to understand in the context of patient records. IT architecture designs, which include the capabilities of providing verifiable data streams and verifiable credentials, help manage dynamic datasets of changing data, include secure, personal data storage models such as wallets and include trust support layers such as blockchains, are integral to the enhancement of patient-centric healthcare services delivery using Web 3.0 models.
Some of the exciting aspects of integrating Web 3.0 design paradigms with patient-centricity are:
Empowerment of patients – with the technology designs enabling patients to have easier access to their health data and govern the access, they can manage their health records, including data streams originating from wearables and access personalised health information.
Interoperability – the standardisation of data formats and harmonisation of how data is exchanged between systems could help address some of the long-standing hard problems around data interoperability which has led to information silos in strange ways
Data security – the organisation involved in healthcare services delivery also needs to strengthen their security stance to mitigate the risks from cyberattacks and data breaches. By enabling data to be accessed on-demand and managed at rest and motion in encrypted formats – these new technologies can create better opportunities to adopt modern cybersecurity practices
There are challenges which come about when considering this intersection of approaches. The primary concern is managing the transformation of vast volumes of legacy data to maintain data integrity while being ready for newer ways of data exchange. Other challenges include creating awareness among the patients in the ways available to access, store, exchange and govern their data. With such transformations involving digital wallets, it is necessary to ensure that data backup, recovery and retrieval work flawlessly for a high-fidelity customer experience. Lastly, there is the challenge of selecting and developing around a common set of data standards to avoid the trap of incompatible data stores.
Records anchored on a blockchain such as CORD capable of managing high volumes of dynamic data streams are now possible. Healthcare organisations need to start incubation workflows where well-scoped pilots can work through the entire journey of a patient to create verifiable data streams of records which include provenance and authenticity mechanisms not just to help the diagnostics and delivery of care but also relying parties such as insurers and similar to have access to data with a high level of assurance. The intersection of patient-centricity and Web 3.0 is unlikely to be a “revolution” – it has to be a measured change that manages the complexity while readying the sector to deliver the emerging expectations of the stakeholders.
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