Author
Thiago Vieira
Bio: Thiago Vieira is an academic researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Information sensitivity & Personalization. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 1108 citations.
Papers
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01 Aug 2016
TL;DR: This paper proposes MedRec: a novel, decentralized record management system to handle EMRs, using blockchain technology, and incentivizes medical stakeholders to participate in the network as blockchain “miners”, enabling the emergence of data economics.
Abstract: Years of heavy regulation and bureaucratic inefficiency have slowed innovation for electronic medical records (EMRs). We now face a critical need for such innovation, as personalization and data science prompt patients to engage in the details of their healthcare and restore agency over their medical data. In this paper, we propose MedRec: a novel, decentralized record management system to handle EMRs, using blockchain technology. Our system gives patients a comprehensive, immutable log and easy access to their medical information across providers and treatment sites. Leveraging unique blockchain properties, MedRec manages authentication, confidentiality, accountability and data sharing -- crucial considerations when handling sensitive information. A modular design integrates with providers' existing, local data storage solutions, facilitating interoperability and making our system convenient and adaptable. We incentivize medical stakeholders (researchers, public health authorities, etc.) to participate in the network as blockchain "miners". This provides them with access to aggregate, anonymized data as mining rewards, in return for sustaining and securing the network via Proof of Work. MedRec thus enables the emergence of data economics, supplying big data to empower researchers while engaging patients and providers in the choice to release metadata. The purpose of this short paper is to expose, prior to field tests, a working prototype through which we analyze and discuss our approach.
1,578 citations
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TL;DR: A comprehensive classification of blockchain-enabled applications across diverse sectors such as supply chain, business, healthcare, IoT, privacy, and data management is presented, and key themes, trends and emerging areas for research are established.
1,310 citations
TL;DR: This paper focuses on the relationship between blockchain and IoT, investigates challenges in blockchain IoT applications, and surveys the most relevant work in order to analyze how blockchain could potentially improve the IoT.
1,255 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors conduct a systematic study on the security threats to blockchain and survey the corresponding real attacks by examining popular blockchain systems. And they also review the security enhancement solutions for blockchain, which could be used in the development of various blockchain systems, and suggest some future directions to stir research efforts into this area.
1,071 citations
TL;DR: This paper introduces blockchain technologies, including their benefits, pitfalls, and the latest applications, to the biomedical and health care domains and discusses the potential challenges and proposed solutions of adopting blockchain technologies in biomedical/health care domains.
798 citations
TL;DR: The potential to use the Blockchain technology to protect healthcare data hosted within the cloud and the practical challenges of such a proposition are described and further research is described.
Abstract: One particular trend observed in healthcare is the progressive shift of data and services to the cloud, partly due to convenience (e.g. availability of complete patient medical history in real-time) and savings (e.g. economics of healthcare data management). There are, however, limitations to using conventional cryptographic primitives and access control models to address security and privacy concerns in an increasingly cloud-based environment. In this paper, we study the potential to use the Blockchain technology to protect healthcare data hosted within the cloud. We also describe the practical challenges of such a proposition and further research that is required.
590 citations