Live data from Hacker News

Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

davidgerard.co.uk

21–30 of 154 posts

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#21
post #17

As someone who is a CEO of a medical blockchain startup which is trying to find actual meaningful use cases, I agree 100% with the conclusions of this post. (finding actual convincing use cases in the medical space for this tech is hard)

What blockchain technology are you going with?

I find the private blockchain technologies (Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth) superior for these types of applications especially since Fabric implemented private data.

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#22

I feel its become very fashionable to dismiss the simpler applications of the tech because of how unrealistically its been applied. It's so easy to do too. Look at the insane valuations, the fraud, and hype cooked up by marketers, and the whole thing looks very stupid. But its a mistake to let this get in the way of critical thinking. There is a reason why the topic is brought up so often and its because among all th…

The obviously convincing argument would be - after ten years - "something to show for it all."

That is, something that blockchain is clearly and obviously the use case for.

"Potential" goes only so far. Eventually you need kinetic.

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#23
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visually looks a little messed up. Could be improved IMHO paying attention to some standard typographic rules. Do not use a mix of several fonts and sizes in the same article Choose good fonts. I wonder why is so trendy nowadays to use the thinnest font available and put it in an low contrast gray tone. It puts a innecessary strain in the eye of your public Cheap fonts have a badly designed character spacing. The sam…

I am personally grateful for every blog which does not go out of it's way to follow "standard typographic rules" because so many of them end up looking identical.

Editors have extensively tested what works and what not for thousands of years. You might notice that I didn't talk about the ideas expressed in the text. Is because the chosen format is too cluttered and distracting. I was expelled in the first two paragraphs and personally couldn't care less about what was written here. I'm not probably the only one.

The lack of knowledge (or care) about basic typography is particularly surprising among web page creators (one of the groups of people that produce more written texts currently). This hurts everybody in many unexpected ways. We enjoy gray text over white background for some reason, jumpscare videos playing suddenly when you enter a web page, diminutive fontsizes by default guaranteeing to damage your eyes, and too long lines of text that are just the incorrect way to do it (but nobody cares).

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it actually solve a problem that couldn't be solved more conveniently with current standards?

It would provide an auditable, tamper-proof database with an immutable history, accessible by all health companies and not controlled by any one health company.

Ok... but a database of what?

If it's the access/authentication layer activity, I don't see what blockchain really brings to the table.

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#26
post #12

Hard not to imagine a pompous Brit spraying saliva everywhere while reading this. To the content - there is only one way to place data on the cloud that is impervious to all global state, corporate and nefarious actors. That is with a robust blockchain. Whether or not you think that is useful in medical records is another story. I've been a medical doctor for 10 years and think that it is.

> I've been a medical doctor for 10 years and think that it is.

Can you explain how blockchain is useful for this in a more nuts-and-bolts way?

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#27

To be generous to those proposing blockchain for health records I think their intent to suggest that it be used for the access/authentication layer of a more conventional secure database, but that's just a guess.

I've found this diagram to be extremely helpful for thinking about why/why not to use blockchain: https://i.redd.it/uu0qg8t28tq11.png (p.42 https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2018/NIST.IR.8202.pdf ) One problem is blockchain is good for identity but not so much access/authentication.

When I look at the first flowchart - there’s no way a PMI-certified Project Manager would say No to any question on the flowchart - so Blockchain it is !

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so...why are you still the CEO of a medical blockchain startup? Surely you escorted yourself off the premises by now? ;) But seriously, isn't this putting the cart before the horse? The usual order is "find a problem, build a solution", not "find a technology, build a solution, work out who has a problem it can solve". How's that working out for you?

There might be potential uses for distributed ledgers in an industry that is required by law to share your care history. This specific company not having arrived at a concrete product does not negate the potential upside. All it takes for them to do is develop a technology that can be of interest to an industry giant and become acquired. Im not saying this is the case here, but it is a real option.

ahh, I see... so more like speculative R&D, developing a technology to the point where it's saleable to a larger organisation. So there's no need for a customer problem to solve, it's just about building enough capability with the tech to become acqui-hirable, is that right?

Re: Medical records on the blockchain – the history of a bad idea

#29

I feel its become very fashionable to dismiss the simpler applications of the tech because of how unrealistically its been applied. It's so easy to do too. Look at the insane valuations, the fraud, and hype cooked up by marketers, and the whole thing looks very stupid. But its a mistake to let this get in the way of critical thinking. There is a reason why the topic is brought up so often and its because among all th…

The obviously convincing argument would be - after ten years - "something to show for it all." That is, something that blockchain is clearly and obviously the use case for. "Potential" goes only so far. Eventually you need kinetic.

Buying and selling illicit products on the internet.
Post reply on HN