NFTs offer new method to control personal health information

Date:
February 3, 2022
Source:
Baylor College of Medicine
Summary:
A team of scholars in ethics, law and informatics wrote one of
the first commentaries on how NFTs could be repurposed for the
healthcare industry.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, created using blockchain technology, first
made a splash in the art world as a platform to buy and sell digital art
backed by a digital contract. But could NFT digital contracts be useful
in other marketplaces? A global, multidisciplinary team of scholars in
ethics, law and informatics led by bioethicists at Baylor College of
Medicine wrote one of the first commentaries on how this new emerging technology could be repurposed for the healthcare industry.


==========================================================================
In a new publication in the journal Science, the researchers propose
that the tool could help patients gain more control over their personal
health information. NFT digital contracts could provide an opportunity
for patients to specify who can access their personal health information
and to track how it is shared.

"Our personal health information is completely outside of our control in
terms of what happens to it once it is digitalized into an electronic
health record and how it gets commercialized and exchanged from
there," said Dr. Kristin Kostick-Quenet, first author of the paper and assistant professor at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy
at Baylor. "NFTs could be used to democratize health data and help
individuals regain control and participate more in decisions about who
can see and use their health information." "In the era of big data,
health information is its own currency; it has become commodified and profitable," said Dr. Amy McGuire, senior author of the paper and Leon
Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and director of the Center for
Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor. "Using NFTs for health data
is the perfect storm between a huge market place that's evolving and the popularity of cryptocurrency, but there are also many ethical, legal and
social implications to consider." The researchers point out that NFTs are still vulnerable to data security flaws, privacy issues, and disputes over intellectual property rights. Further, the complexity of NFTs may prevent
the average citizen from capitalizing on their potential. The researchers believe it is important to consider potential benefits and challenges as
NFTs emerge as a potential avenue to transform the world of health data.

"Federal regulations already give patients the right to connect an app of
their choice to their doctor's electronic health record and download their
data in a computable format," said Dr. Kenneth Mandl, co-author of the
paper, director of the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children's Hospital and Donald A.B. Lindberg Professor of Pediatrics
and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. "It's intriguing
to contemplate whether NFTs or NFT- like technology could enable
intentional sharing of those data under smart contracts in the future."
Dr. Timo Minssen, I. Glenn Cohen, Dr. Urs Gasser and Dr. Isaac Kohane also contributed to this publication. They are from the following institutions: Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School, University of Copenhagen and Technical University of Munich. See the publication for a full list of funding for these researchers.

special promotion Explore the latest scientific research on sleep and
dreams in this free online course from New Scientist -- Sign_up_now_>>> ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Baylor_College_of_Medicine. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Kristin Kostick-Quenet, Kenneth D. Mandl, Timo Minssen, I. Glenn
Cohen,
Urs Gasser, Isaac Kohane, Amy L. McGuire. How NFTs could transform
health information exchange. Science, 2022; 375 (6580): 500 DOI:
10.1126/ science.abm2004 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220203161133.htm

--- up 8 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 13 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)