The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated an unprecedented push for digital transformation, accelerating the adoption of digital expertise in well being care1. There was a surge in telemedicine providers, in synthetic intelligence (AI) for SARS-CoV-2 detection2, and in the usage of AI to foretell blueprints for vaccine improvement3. With the elevated digital circulation of knowledge, there’s a want for privacy-preserving applied sciences to enhance analysis and medical purposes throughout the healthcare system4,5. Knowledge tokenization on the blockchain offers excessive ranges of privateness and confers the potential for private possession of well being knowledge, which different privacy-preserving applied sciences comparable to federated studying and generative adversarial networks don’t supply6,7,8 (see Desk 1 for a glossary of phrases). Using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is a possible data-management answer for the governance of knowledge at each private and institutional ranges.
Tokenization is a data-security methodology and token varieties embrace platform tokens, utility tokens, governance tokens, safety tokens, and NFTs. NFTs are supported on blockchain platforms comparable to Ethereum and Hyperledger Material, the place every NFT is digitally distinctive. NFTs will be created through the minting of present digital knowledge, or they’ll use generative knowledge, the place the digital product is produced in entire or partly by an autonomous system. As soon as encoded with blockchain expertise, a NFT can’t be modified, and its authenticity is validated by means of the blockchain during which it’s saved. Therefore, previous to minting, knowledge have to be cleaned, verified by verifiable credentials, and transformed into an actionable kind. This enables people to personal and commerce digital belongings between events comparable to multinational medical networks, pharmaceutical corporations or insurance coverage corporations (Fig. 1).
A blockchain-enabled ‘biodata’ platform will function a decentralized and safe collaborative community for well being knowledge. It will allow the safe trade of healthcare knowledge amongst a number of stakeholders, together with sufferers, hospitals, authorities our bodies, pharmaceutical corporations, analysis institutes and insurance coverage corporations.
We envisage a number of potential advantages of healthcare knowledge tokenization within the type of NFTs. Possession of knowledge by sufferers might end in safer care by bettering the fluidity of well being info amongst completely different care suppliers. At current, guidelines across the safety of knowledge privateness limit the sharing of affected person knowledge throughout establishments, and inaccurate or incomplete info can lead to misdiagnosis and suboptimal care. Affected person entry and possession of knowledge would possibly overcome this example. This elevated fluidity of well being info might render well being financial advantages by decreasing duplicate investigations or remedy.
Giving sufferers possession and entry to their well being knowledge may additionally encourage affected person engagement of their care9, which may positively have an effect on remedy compliance. Equally, tokenization of well being knowledge permits sufferers to train autonomy over their very own knowledge, which might forestall corporations from benefiting from knowledge aggregated through private well being purposes, or unauthorized entry to institutional databases by third events who then promote delicate well being info. As a substitute, sufferers can actively select to share private knowledge for analysis. This might handle ongoing moral issues surrounding conditions during which AI builders use publicly obtainable affected person knowledge to develop AI algorithms that may be monetized, with out the sufferers being financially rewarded.
Storing well being knowledge as NFTs may also guarantee knowledge authenticity by stopping modifications as soon as knowledge have undergone minting. Knowledge integrity contributes to high quality well being care throughout medical decision-making processes and also will contribute to more-accurate findings in analysis. Using blockchain expertise may be used for drug verification to stop counterfeit medicine. Using good contracts inside NFTs additional permits for dependable automation of knowledge trade. Sensible contract is a rule-based algorithm that enables automated self-execution of the approval course of when predetermined circumstances or guidelines are met, which removes the necessity for human enter within the execution course of.
To tokenize well being knowledge, modifications have to be produced from present NFT methods. We focus right here on the minting course of and fewer on the transactional nature of present business NFTs. We suggest {that a} blockchain ledger devoted to healthcare knowledge is recognized or created, with tokenized knowledge saved and verified, and the place the info can’t be publicly considered. This contrasts with present business NFT marketplaces the place the digital asset — comparable to an artwork or music file — will be publicly considered, though owned solely by the person who generated or purchased it.
An internet-based or smartphone utility might be created, during which every affected person has a well being pockets, much like a cryptocurrency pockets, the place tokenized digital well being knowledge will be accessed as NFTs through verifiable credentials. The well being knowledge to be tokenized have to be characterised, which can contain figuring out whether or not the info are structured (comparable to laboratory values) or unstructured (comparable to radiology photos and doctor notes) and whether or not preprocessing of the info is required.
As soon as the infrastructure is prepared, well being knowledge will be minted as NFTs. Acquired well being knowledge will bear minting right into a well being NFT and made obtainable in a affected person’s well being pockets. Sufferers will then have possession and entry to their very own knowledge and should subsequently resolve whether or not to share or switch possession of those knowledge to different events within the community (Fig. 1).
Regardless of the potential advantages, nevertheless, there are limitations to the adoption of NFTs in well being care. NFTs are vulnerable to knowledge safety compromises owing to vulnerabilities with good contracts. Stolen NFTs aren’t unusual, as seen within the theft of Bored Ape Yacht Membership NFTs, the place hackers used phishing strategies to switch good contracts. Furthermore, tokenization of well being knowledge might result in unethical exploitation, with sufferers being pushed to take part in assessments for financial beneficial properties. As well as, the complexities of NFTs might pose a problem for some folks when it comes to managing their very own knowledge.
Destruction of NFTs is feasible and is completed by ‘burning’ at current, with NFTs being despatched to inaccessible addresses. Nevertheless, NFTs are usually thought to be immutable and should exist on the blockchain ceaselessly, posing a problem for the destruction or modification of any inaccuracies in well being knowledge which may compromise affected person care and analysis integrity. The minting, switch and storage of enormous quantities of healthcare knowledge may also result in excessive upkeep prices and energy consumption, leading to an infinite carbon footprint10. Minting of NFTs can fluctuate in price relying on the info dimension, transaction velocity, blockchain utility charges, and knowledge high quality. The colossal quantity of well being knowledge from the worldwide inhabitants could also be an excessive amount of for present infrastructure to assist. The nascent expertise of quantum computing might present options for knowledge storage, retrieval and evaluation by means of quantum speedup and quantum supremacy. Future analysis to handle these limitations and sensible concerns will help within the tokenization of well being knowledge.
NFTs in well being care might revolutionize how delicate well being knowledge are dealt with. On the coronary heart of NFTs are transparency, accountability, privateness and affected person autonomy — all of that are essential values in well being care. Additional enhancements to safeguard knowledge safety and to simplify processes, in addition to to extend accessibility to all, will likely be important if NFTs are to start out a revolution in digital well being.