HEALTHCARE TRANSACTION VALIDATION VIA BLOCKCHAIN PROOF-OF-WORK, SYSTEMS AND METHODS

• US 20150332283A1
• Filed: 05/13/2015
• Published: 11/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Inventors: Witchey, Nicholas J.
• Granted Patent: US 10,340,038 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/645 using a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2250/30 Record keeping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/018 Certifying business or products
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]

Abstract

Healthcare transaction validation systems and methods are presented. Healthcare transactions associated with a stakeholder are compiled into a chain of healthcare transaction blocks. The chain can be considered a chronicle of person'"'"'s healthcare path through life. When a transaction is conducted, the corresponding healthcare parameters (e.g., inputs, outputs, clinical evidence, outcomes, etc.) are sent to one or more validation devices. The devices establish a validity of the transaction and generate a new block via a proof-of-work principle. Once the new block has been calculated it can be appended to the stakeholder'"'"'s health care blockchain.

Claims

28. A computer program product embedded in a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions executable by one or more computer processors of one or more computers of a plurality of computers coupled to a network to at least:

receive health care transaction data corresponding to a plurality of health care transactions, the plurality of health care transactions including transactions corresponding to at least a first transaction participant and a second transaction participant associated with, respectively, a first historical healthcare blockchain and a second historical healthcare blockchain;

generate first validation data for a first not-previously-validated transaction of the first transaction participant;

generate second validation data for a second not-previously-validated transaction of the second transaction participant;

generate a first validity block comprising at least the first validation data, transaction data of the first not-previously-validated transaction, and a hash of at least a portion of a most recent block of the first historical blockchain;

generate a second validity block comprising at least the second validation data, transaction data of the second not-previously-validated transaction, and a hash of at least a portion of a most recent block of the second historical blockchain;

transmit the first validity block to one or more other computers of the plurality of computers on the network; and

transmit the second validity block to one or more other computers of the plurality of computers on the network;

wherein the one or more other computers of the plurality of computers on the network are configured to determine acceptance of the first and second validity blocks and to append a first accepted validity block to the historical blockchain of the first transaction participant and to append a second accepted validity block to the historical blockchain of the second transaction participant.

1. A method of validating healthcare transactions, the method comprising:

receiving, by a validation device, a healthcare transaction comprising a set of healthcare tokens representative of healthcare actions taken with respect to a healthcare stakeholder;

obtaining, by the validation device, a historical block identifier from a healthcare historical blockchain representative of historical actions taken with respect to the stakeholder;

receiving, by the validation device, a validity requirement with respect to the healthcare actions;

obtaining, by the validation device, a digital signature of a validator;

obtaining a validity token indicative of a validity of the healthcare actions and based on the set of healthcare tokens;

calculating, by the validation device, a validity block for at least the healthcare transaction according the validity requirement as a function of the following healthcare parameters;

the validity token, historical block identifier, the set of healthcare tokens, and the digital signature; and

causing the healthcare historical blockchain to be updated with the validity block.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating the historical blockchain from the set of healthcare tokens.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of healthcare tokens comprise a birth token and the historical blockchain depends on the birth token.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of healthcare tokens comprise at least one parent token and the historical blockchain depends on the at least one parent token.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the healthcare stakeholder includes at least one of the following:

a patient, a care provider, a technician, a payer, a broker, and a guardian.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the healthcare tokens comprises standardized codes.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the standardized codes includes at least one of the following:

an ICD code, a CPT code, and a DSM code.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of healthcare tokens comprise a token representative of at least one of the following:

a test result, a genetic code, a diagnosis, a prognosis, a patient identifier, a caregiver identifier, a fee, and a payer identifier.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of obtaining the historical block identifier includes obtaining at least a portion of the historical blockchain over a network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the network comprises a distributed network of peer validation devices.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the validity requirement comprises a proof-of-work difficulty.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the validity requirement comprises at least two factors that depend on the validity token.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital signature of the validator comprises at least one of the following:

a validator ID, a validator address, a validator public key, and a validator private key.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of calculating the validity block includes applying a first hash as the function to the healthcare parameters.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising applying at least a second hash to the results from the first hash.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the first hash is selected from the group consisting of:

SHA, Scrypt, MD5, RIPEMD, and WHIRLPOOL.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the historical block identifier comprises a hash of a header of a previous block in the blockchain.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the hash of the header of the previous block is of a last block added to the historical blockchain.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of causing the healthcare historical blockchain to be updated includes broadcasting the validity block to peers in a validity network.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring a server to operate as the validation device.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising configuring the server to operate a peer within a validation network of validation devices.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting a validator interface via a mobile device, the validator interface configured to accept the validity token.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the validation device comprises a clinical operating system device.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of calculating the validity block for at least the healthcare transaction includes calculating the validity block from multiple healthcare transactions.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising combining the multiple transactions into the validity block.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a digital redeemable token in exchange for confirmation of the validity block as part of the healthcare historical blockchain.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the redeemable token includes at least one of the following:

a coupon, a virtual currency, a fiat currency, and a service.

29. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein the instructions are executable by the one or more processors to generate to performing proof-of-work processing.

30. The computer program product of claim 29 wherein the proof-of-work processing comprises identifying a nonce to be included in the validity block that, when hashed with at least some other data in the validity block, results in a number meeting pre-determined characteristics.

31. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein the instructions are executable by the one or more processors to generate validation data by using one or more medical data requirements to evaluate health care data in a not-previously validated healthcare transaction.

32. The computer program product of claim 30 wherein the medical data requirement requires that a test result in the not-previously-validated healthcare transaction is compatible with a diagnosis in the not-previously-validated healthcare transaction.

33. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein the validation data is generated in response to user input from a trusted user of the one or more computers.

34. The computer program product of claim 33 wherein the validation data includes a digital signature proof-of-stake of the trusted user.

35. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein the validation data include proof-of-stake data.

36. The computer program product of claim 35 wherein the proof-of-stake data comprises a digital signature of a validated stakeholder.

37. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein acceptance of a validity block is based on determining that the validity block has a timestamp earlier than any other validity block generated by the one or more computers comprising transaction data of the same not-previously-validated transaction.

38. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein acceptance of the validity block is based on determining that a majority of the one or more other computers receiving the validity block have communicated data reflecting agreement to accept the validity block.

39. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein the first transaction participant is a healthcare patient in the first not-previously-validated healthcare transaction and the second transaction participant is a health care patient in the second not-previously-validated healthcare transaction.

40. The computer program product of claim 28 wherein:

the first not-previously-validated healthcare transaction and the second not-previously-validated healthcare transaction are the same transaction;

the first transaction participant and the second transaction participants are different entity types; and

the first transaction participant and the second transaction participant are participants in the same transaction.

41. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the first transaction participant is a healthcare patient and the second transaction participant is a healthcare provider.

31-1. The computer program of claim 30 wherein the medical data requirement requires that a test result in the not-previously-validated healthcare transaction is not incompatible with data of a previously validated healthcare transaction in a historical healthcare blockchain of a patient associated with the test result.