I-Corps: Digital Health Information Infrastructure

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to develop technology that improves healthcare data infrastructure. Digital health has reached an inflection point. The FDA recently issued new guidelines for "Software as Medical Device" (SaMD) which is accelerating the development of clinical-grade connected devices. In recent months, investors poured $815 million into digital health and health sensor startups. The rise in digital biomarkers and biosensors present an opportunity to make significant changes in the way that care is monitored and delivered. Some relatively inexpensive tools that collect health data can make "precision medicine" a reality. However, current tools are not optimized for a large influx of data and there is a need for better infrastructure to be able to securely store and access data and to develop algorithms on these new datasets. This I-Corps project uses blockchain-derived protocols to improve the way digital health information is stored and accessed. A blockchain is an open database (e.g., a distributed ledger) maintained by a network of independent participants. This blockchain protocol is designed for trustless, peer-to-peer exchange without a central authority. Each digitally-connected sensor is a separate node (participant) in the protocol. As a patient generates new data, the sensor records the information, and creates a time-stamped summary in the distributed ledger. The blockchain provides assurance that the research queries are tamper-proof and have an auditable history across a wide range of actors in the system. The goal for the I-Corps participation is to best understand the systems and features the clinical data scientists are looking to as they develop next-generation clinical decisions and algorithms.