Welcome and Opening Statements

• A reminder to all HC-SIG members that this meeting is being recorded

• Reading of the Linux Foundation Antitrust Policy

  • Hyperledger Antitrust Slide

• Discussion: request for note-taking for this meeting

In attendance:

• Rich Bloch
• Alan Bachmann
• Brian
• Doug Bulleit
• jonathan
• Kamlesh
• Kenneth Jensen
• Logan Wilding
• Robert Coli, MD
• Sahida Khatun
• Saptarshi
• Steven Elliott
• Wendy Charles (recording)
• Raveesh Dewan

Introductions

• If you’re new to the group, please…

  • Introduce yourself

  • Tell us where you're geographically located

  • Share with us your interests in healthcare in general, and blockchain technologies in specific

Community Announcements

• Feel free to share your community announcements as they relate to the Hyperledger community

HC-SIG Subgroup Updates

• Patient/Member Subgroup (Benjamin Djidi, Lead)

Rich provided an overview of the subgroup: patient/payer/provider with a big focus on the Donor Milk Project. The group meets every two weeks and is looking for other new supply chain issues, so please contact Benjamin Djidl, if interested.

• Payer Subgroup (Raveesh Dewan, Lead)

Raveesh Dewan provided an overview of the group He shared an update about the paper and he recognized individual contributors. He also described starting efforts on a use case, bringing in local leaders to discuss healthcare. He said he’ll be inviting the HC-SIG to participate in a prototype. The group meets every other Tuesday from 3 – 4 pm EDT.

• Healthcare Interoperability Subgroup (Steven Elliott, Lead)

Steven Elliot provided an overview of the interoperability distributed ledger efforts. He said there wasn’t substantial progress since the last meeting. He described potential use cases, such as tracking immunization. He described needs for identity and consent management. Rich described adding information to the Wiki.

HC-SIG Ad Hoc Team Updates

• Wiki Redesign Team (Brian Ahier and Raveesh Dewan, Lead)

  • Work continues on our SIG site design

Raveesh described his efforts to clean up the SIG space. Rich explained that the goal is to create a consistent approach across the SIGs. He said it’s been difficult because the organization is growing so fast.

• Academic Research Team (Logan Wilding, Wendy Charles, Nisarg Amin, and Adrian Berg, Lead)

  • Excellent team meeting held on 04/12

  • Logan's proposal to the team posted on 04/12, draft located here 

  • Original team whitepaper, currently in works, draft located here

  • Open team discussions remain:
    • Identify a succinct and comprehensive mission statement
    • Decide whether to remain an ad hoc team or consider forming an HC-SIG subgroup

Rich explained the role of academia and generating information in peer-reviewed journals. He shared that there was a good meeting about a week ago. Logan Wilding asked for feedback about his recent proposal to engage academic medical centers in applying blockchain to healthcare. He explained the importance of focusing on financial impact and evidence-based practice. Rich invited individuals to participate by letting him know by email or RocketChat. He praised the excellent resources in the group and said this may become a subgroup.

Old Business

• Hyperledger Quarterly SIG Report due 04/15 (Rich)

  • 2019-Q1 Quarterly Report completed, and available here

  • Special thanks to our HC-SIG Subgroup leads for helping to generate this report: Steven, Raveesh, and Benjamin

Rich said the quarterly Hyperledger Report was submitted on time. He recognized the efforts of the individuals who contributed to the report.

• HC-SIG Use Cases (Rich)
  • From last meeting, it was determined that we should develop and publish healthcare use cases. Rich will help to facilitate this. Wendy suggested that her access to academic white papers will likely have use cases that we might use to get started
  • Discussion: your thoughts on developing uses cases for HC-SIG? Volunteers to lead this effort?

Rich noted that the HC-SIG doesn’t have use cases documented. This issue arose during the HIMSS Conference. He asked for feedback about developing use cases. Wendy Charles offered to lead this compilation. There was discussion about what the use cases should involve. Brian Bentow offered that it may be valuable to include the FHIR specification across many use cases. As a concern, Rich noted that if we presented only 10 use cases, the recipient would not think beyond these 10. As a benefit, however, use cases would inspire more understanding of blockchain applications. Jonathan Holt noted that use cases are really like case studies where the details are explained. He offered the example of vaccinations and encouraged individuals to considerer IEEE standards. Bob Coli noted that there was a separate email from Benjamin Djidl, but Rich clarified that Benjamin had requested use cases for a different project. Rich concluded this topic by stating that he’ll schedule a separate call to discuss direction.

• Blockchain Governance (Rich)
  • Rich followed up with Hyperledger leadership, and it was noted that there is currently no blockchain governance group or activity in place that serves in a cross-cutting capacity (i.e., beyond the healthcare industry)
  • Discussion: should we continue to pursue this issue beyond the scope of the HC-SIG? Perhaps engage other SIGS in discussion on their interests?

Rich noted that this was another area of interest at the HIMSS Conference. He said that he reached out within Hyperledger community leadership to learn about governance and found that there is no blockchain governance that serves in a cross-cutting capacity. He explained that as blockchain is gaining more acceptance, there are questions about governance best practices. Rich recommended a separate governance working group with a more lateral view. He asked for volunteers.

New Business

• Great New Blockchain Research Resource Available! (Rich, Wendy)

  • Special thanks to Wendy Charles for sharing her list of blockchain article citations (97 pages of excellent research resources)

Wendy Charles described the background of her efforts and how she designed the listing of academic publications. She offered to update the list monthly. Rich explained the difficulty of uploading a Word document. Raveesh suggested converting to different formats. Wendy and Raveesh will connect offline.

• New Healthcare Challenge Opportunities (Rich)
  • Sponsored through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
    • Social Determinants of Healthcare (SDoH) Innovation Challenge
      • Opens 2019.04.29
      • Phase I deadline: 2019.06.07
    • Home & Community Based Care Innovation Challenge
      • Opens: 2019.04.29
      • Phase I deadline: 2019.06.07

Rich explained that there are new exciting healthcare challenges posed by the Robert Wood Johnson. He provided links in the Wiki.

• Upcoming HC-SIG Presentations (Rich)

• Brian Bentow, Head of Innovation at InstaMed will be presenting on the work that he and his team have been doing as it relates to the development of an open-source Hyperledger Fabric solution for use in the healthcare industry

• Speaking at an upcoming HC-SIG General Meeting (05/03)
  

Brian Bentow introduced himself and explained his role at InstaMed. He described his open source efforts on Hyperledger Fabric and how these are intended to address inefficiencies and cost of payment systems. He described it as Clearinghouse 2.0. This system supports a much broader data exchange with consideration of interoperability. He will present at the next HC-SIG meeting.

• Open Discussions (Rich)

  • Discussion: your thoughts on changes you'd like to see with the HC-SIG?

Next Meeting

• Scheduled for Friday, 2019.05.03, 0700 Pacific Time

• Discussion: topics to add to agenda?