Decentralized Health Info Exchange

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Capitalizing on the existing Hippocrades Healthcare Infrastructure plus blockchain and zero-knowledge cryptography protocols, a decentralized & secure healthcare information exchange is now possible.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

We are from the Hippocrades Team that has built a decentralized healthcare infrastructure for Cardano. We have been selected in the first batch of the Ariob Incubator / Iceaddis program in Africa which is supported by Cardano for high-potential startups.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

What are the Benefits of a Health Information Exchange?

Many studies have shown the enormous benefits of having a Health Information Exchange (HIE) - from the improvement in the quality of care, better healthcare delivery, increased safety, elimination of duplicate testing, to the reduction of healthcare costs. An HIE allows the exchange of healthcare information electronically from one organization to another among different information systems.

Nice benefits! So, what is the current state of HIEs in countries across the globe?

For many countries, especially the emerging ones, implementing an HIE is still a far cry from reality. This is because of the many significant challenges in building one, such as standardizations, at-scale interoperability, data security, data privacy, data integrity, identity assurance, risk management, and auditability. Even for developed countries that have taken big steps toward this direction, there are still ongoing obstacles in achieving the intended setup.

Why do even advanced countries still have challenges with their HIE?

Previously, the only available technology that allows them for an HIE setup is a centralized one. In this setup, the potential threat for hacking and intrusion is very high. In addition, since there is a central authority, there is usually less trust from users with regard to the handling of their privacy.

Fortunately, with the developments in blockchain and zero-knowledge proof crypto protocols, a decentralized, permissionless, and secure health exchange is now possible.

Ok, so with blockchain and zero-knowledge, building an HIE should be fairly easy, right?

Not so. Take note that the exchange platform is just one part of the required infrastructure. The users would also need their own health systems to integrate with the HIE. As such, to complete this goal, a set of healthcare applications and health APIs are necessary to finally resolve this concern.

Is that what Hippocrades offers?

Yes. Hippocrades offers the complete setup of health modules and APIs that will be integrated with the proposed HIE. In fact, it has already built a Proof of Concept (POC) for its HIE. However, the team further improved the framework by adding a Medical Records Rights Management and an enhanced protocol called Hippr (short for Hippocrades Protocol). A separate white paper is written about it.

Really, where can I see the Hippr white paper?

The Hippr white paper can be seen here. You can also read the Hippocrades Infrastructure white paper here.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Would the Decentralized Health Information Exchange bring impactful use case to Cardano ecosystem and help drive more adoption?

Definitely yes! First, Hippocrades provides healthcare solutions for clinics, pharmacies, diagnostic centers, and doctors. These alone would already drive users of the health modules. Second, these systems are automatically integrated with the intended health exchange platform. Other facilities that have their own systems can still integrate via the provided APIs. Once they are integrated, the potential number of transactions/exchanges (built on top of Cardano) can be enormous driving huge adoption and traction.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Health Core is Already Built

The core of this healthcare platform is DONE, something we have been working on since 2016. Thus, the foundation is already set up, we just need to build the Medical Records Rights Protocol on top of this. See existing Healthcare APIs of Hippocrades already built.

In addition, a POC of the HIE has already been built in testnet. However, it was noted that it needs improvements as brought about by the Hippr white paper, thus this proposal. As such, the team has already experience in building this.

Potential Risk

In terms of capabilities, our team has shown that we can deliver. The potential challenge could be the setting of the deliverables timeline. There are some external factors that may be overlooked during planning (in a previous project, couple of our team members got Covid, for example).

To mitigate this, we will propose a more conservative timeline of activities in this proposal in consideration of potential factors that can cause delay.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Week 1

• Set up of team and project goals / objectives
• Review of requirements
• Review of System Architecture (Hippocrades is a platform with multiple modules, use cases, and intricacies)

Weeks 2 - 5

• Backend Development: Healthcare APIs Modifications

Weeks 6 - 10

• Backend Development: SecureShare

Weeks 10 - 13

• Quality Assurance and Testing
• Re-work (if needed)
• Estimate (20 days)

Weeks 14 - 16

• Documentation and Release

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Project Lead (1)

• 4 months (spread) @ $ 1.5T / month
• $ 6T

System Analyst and Designer

• 2 months (spread) @ $ 3T/month
• $ 6T

Backend Senior Developer

• 4 months @ $3T / month
• $ 12T

QA / Documentation

• 2 months @ $1.5T / month
• $ 3T

Total: $ 27,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Our team has been building healthcare solutions since 2016. We have built Hippocrades, a decentralized healthcare infrastructure for web 3.0. It has been funded by Project Catalyst and is now part of the Ariob Incubator / Iceaddis program in Africa (this is in partnership with Cardano). It is also a finalist in the recent Seedstar - FT x Cardano Blockchain Challenge.

References to Our Works

• Hippocrades Whitepaper here
• Deploy your own health dApps (www.hippocrades.org)
• Actual deployment of Hippocrades (www.hippocrades.com)
• Demo of Hippocrades Apps here
• Healthcare API documentation here
• We are the same team behind MYCURE
• Related funded projects from Catalyst, see links below

Core Tech Team

We are a 10 man team and also have a pool of tech consultants that we can tap on a project basis. This project will be lead by the following:

Dale is the founder of Hippocrades and the co-author of its two (2) white papers. He also founded a health tech startup, MYCURE, and healthcare APIs platform HAPI Hub. Prior to these startups, he also founded and run Team OPS (a soft dev company) for 11 years. He graduated with the highest distinction in his master's class at the University of the Philippines and also took a one-year graduate program in management at Harvard University.

Joff has been programming and focusing on web development using JavaScript in the past 9 years (since 2012). Most of his time is spent mastering frontend development using AngularJS, Angular, and Vue.js frameworks. Currently, he is dabbling on SvelteJS. He is passionate on contributing to the open-source community. Being a big fan of Vue.js, his projects are mostly based on Vue.js or JavaScript.

Joff's Areas of Expertise:

• Stripe Community Expert
• Creator of Vue-Stripe
• OSS Community Building
• Web Development
• Mobile Development
• JavaScript
• VueJS
• HTML, CSS, Javascript

Nad is a natural geek growing up. He has been coding since the art has been introduced to him at age 15. This has led him to choose Computer Science as his undergraduate degree at the top university in the country. Since 2016, he is mostly involved in designing healthcare systems—developing APIs like EMRs and full scale health information management solutions.

Nad's Areas of Expertise:

• System Analysis & Design
• API Development
• Kubernetes
• gRPC
• Blockchain
• Zero-knowledge cryptography protocols
• Programming Languages: C, Javascript, Rust, Go

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes. Hippocrades is a huge undertaking as explained in detail in its two (2) white papers:

1. Hippocrades Infrastructure white paper
2. Hippocrades Protocol (Hippr) white paper

While it has already major milestones over the last 5 years, it still has some needed tasks to complete its infrastructure.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

In the last 5 years that we have been building healthcare apps, we have been applying the following below:

• Stable code (to minimize application downtime)
• Simple code (simplicity is key, the simpler it is the faster to test and change)
• Testable code (acts like documentation so that changes will immediately show errors)
• Team velocity (story points delivered per sprint)
• Knowledge share (collaborative meetings and proper documentation)

Tasks and deliverables of the Dev Team are placed in GitHub from which we track, monitor, manage activities that are pending, ongoing, and done.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success During Development

Modules and features are listed accordingly that contain the tasks/activities required and their corresponding due dates to accomplish each.

We monitor success by ticking off each task done per module. For delayed items, these are regularly brought up in daily standups and weekly meetings to discuss blockings/issues and what needs to be done to address them.

Success as a Project

Once the Decentralized Health Exchange is deployed (testnet), tested, and becomes available in the Hippocrades infrastructure, this is considered DONE.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

Hippocrades as an Infrastructure and Platform

Hippocrades is more than just an app, it's a health infrastructure and platform that other developers can use to build more healthcare apps. It also has apps that are independent of each other but can be used altogether (or in combination) depending on the needs of the deployer.

Following are the funded proposals by Catalyst that are part of the Hippocrades ecosystem:

• Integration of Health Infra to Cardano blockchain here
• Pharmacy Management System here
• Vaccine Management Platform here
• Hospital Management System here (status: ongoing)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

The related SDG Goals below are aligned with Hippocrades' mission to make healthcare data safely and securely accessible to all. Providing a health tech infrastructure allows nations to achieve the 3.8 SDG subgoals since these require a robust system to be able to deliver such services efficiently.

SDG Goals

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

SDG Subgoals

3.8 Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

3.8.1 Coverage of essential health services