The aim of the project is to use blockchain technology to create a shared ledger that can be used by NZ medical institutions to store patients' health records. A blockchain is a distributed ledger technology stores an immutable list of records which are linked and secured using cryptography. Using the blockchain, medical institutions, such as hospitals and GPs, can easily view patient's medical records without the need to contact and obtain records from other institutions. They can also append relevant records, such as patient's diagnostics details, to the blockchain so that it can be viewed by other institutions almost immediately. The immutability and the consensus mechanisms of the blockchain ensure that the records are fraud-proof.
The blockchain has the potential to make sharing of records between medical institutions more efficient. It also enables medical information to be more transparent to the patients, so they can easily view their records.
Undergraduate
A successful project will produce the following outcomes:
- A literature review into Blockchain technology and how it has currently been applied in the medical domain, presenting benefits and shortcomings of existing applications.
- A review of alternative methods of distributed / cloud-based patient record storage. Critique / comparison of these approaches.
- A proof-of-concept system using Blockchain to store patient record data.
None
Lab allocations have not been finalised