HealthCore

The healthcare industry is in dire need of solutions that protect all facets of health-data. LifeRhythm Labs proposes the development and implementation of HealthCore, a multi-layer blockchain & crypto-based environment focused on the establishment of a complete suite of applications and service functions for the healthcare industry. With the ability to scale globally, HealthCore will guarantee the safety and accessibility of medical data around the world. This not only ensures patient confidentiality and personal-information safety, but provides an avenue for fast and secure access to patient records anywhere in the world.

The need for the HealthCore system is realized in two coalescing necessities: healthcare-data privacy and availability.

The healthcare industry is in dire need of a secure data storage and dissemination system. Data breaches in the industry are well known and, according to the HIPAA Journal, resulted in the impermissible disclosure of 230,954,151 healthcare records between 2009 and 2019.

In times of immediate concern surrounding pandemics and other disasters, a lack of secure access can be deadly. In emergency situations, especially when traveling abroad, access to patient medical information can be a lengthy and bureaucratic process. An easy and secure way for healthcare professionals to access their patients’ records does not exist. There is also the need for the HealthCore service on an ongoing basis. With the HIPAA Journal reporting that, in 2019 alone, healthcare data breaches were reported at a rate of 1.4 per day, the need for a health-data security solution is obvious.

The problems faced by both medical professionals and patients in securing access to health data, as well as the need to focus on long-term solutions to health-data security speak directly to the goals of the Health Security and Pandemics Challenge.

To solve the problems of healthcare-data privacy and availability, LifeRhythm Medical Services is designing HealthCore.

HealthCore will be a multi-layer blockchain & crypto-based environment focused on the establishment of a complete suite of applications and service functions for the medical records industry. According to a study by Fortified Health Security, almost all web applications connected to critical health information are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Network penetration results show that hackers can easily access domain-level administrative privileges of most healthcare applications. As a result, the use of advanced technologies such as block-chain and cloud computing are necessary to ward off such attacks in the future. That is exactly what the HealthCore platform will accomplish.

No systems currently exist that offer all of the functions that HealthCore will be able to cover. It is intended to be an all-in-one platform for healthcare services. It will allow for the application of video conferencing, text-based communication channels, calendars, scheduling, appointment registry, geo-locations and mapping, emergency service callouts, heartrate and vitals monitoring (biometrics), audio therapy, asset exchange, account reconciliation and dealing with 3rd party non-custodial wallets.

The intended market for the HealthCore platform is incredibly wide ranging. At launch, it will target as wide an audience of medical professionals as possible: factions of the medical industry from general family practitioners, dental providers, optometrists and dermatologists to heart surgeons, neurologists, and psychologists, and their patients and clients will all be in the purview of the HealthCore Suite.

LifeRhythm Labs is dedicated to understanding the needs of the medical community and patients. This is reflected not only in the company’s core values, but also proven with the inclusion of a full-time medical advisor Dr. Nabila Patel, on all projects.

In 2018, HIPAA settlements and civil monetary penalties related to impermissible disclosure of healthcare records leveled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) totaled $28,683,400, with multi-million-dollar fines for HIPAA violations reportedly now the norm.

With a Health IT Security report showing that 82% of surveyed healthcare organizations agree that digital security is one of their foremost concerns, the customer base for HealthCore is ready for a solution.

Using HealthCore, LifeRhythm seeks to not only provide access to digital medical services that will revolutionize industries, but also revolutionize quality of life.

This Challenge seeks to find solutions to both short and long-term problems facing the healthcare industry. HealthCore has both.

In terms of crisis, such as a rapid-onset pandemic, secure and reliable access to patient records is critical for both medical professionals and patients themselves. By providing several types of access, including records that are accessible via smartphone, the HealthCore system offers solutions to the Challenge’s rapid response goals.

In the long-term, LifeRhythm’s HealthCore system seeks to revolutionize the ways in which the healthcare industry works with its most vital information. This will ensure long lasting preventative solutions to health-data security.

Current competitors to the HealthCore system include Cleardata, ID Experts, Hashed Health, Medcrypt, and Senrio. While these companies all focus on one aspect of the health-data market, such as Cleardata’s health-data security services, or Senrio’s passive defense for embedded devices, the primary innovation that HealthCore offers over its competitors is providing an integrated solution to all of the information-technology systems with which the healthcare industry interacts.

To reflect the role that it plays within the greater HealthCore medical ecosystem, each layer of the platform has been given names of biological micro-elements:

The Hydrogen ecosystem addresses aspects of the industry pertaining to medical data storage and management, privacy of sensitive information, insurance, payments, and predictive pharmacology.

The first technology of its kind designed to keep all resources native within one ecosystem, the Carbon layer will be a value transmission layer technology designed to act as the native settlement clearinghouse for the HealthCore medical ecosystem.

Nitrogen is the application and utilities layer technology of the HealthCore medical ecosystem. Within this layer all necessary remote medical functionalities of the platform exist: teleconferencing, scheduling, emergency callouts, biometrics monitoring, 3rd part wallet integration, etc.

The Oxygen layer of the HealthCore platform will house the User Interface, but will also have the ability to collect and register user meta-data anonymously. Data will be collected using existing psycho-social behavioral patterns of application users including swipe matching, search maps and pinning, sorting by preference, up-voting and dislikes, review leaving, and profile dashboard rendering.

HealthCore is intended to be a foolproof ecosystem for all aspects of healthcare data management, making security breaches a thing of the past. To accomplish this, the integrated platform uses a multi-layer blockchain & crypto-based environment.

Blockchain is renowned for its data permanence and availability. Once a piece of information has been introduced into a blockchain it cannot be removed, and if removal is attempted, the action is recorded and appended. Moreover, that data can always be requested or checked on.

In addition, the HealthCore platform selectively segregates information by sensitivity with emergency data presented in an abstract format that must be requested through a multi-signature scheme. The Multi-sig scheme is bound by a 5-factor approach, Application-Device-Biometrics-Wallet-Password. In this 5-facor scheme, any combination of requests creates its own specific level of accessibility permission; where 3-of-5 will provide abstract meta-data and 5-of-5 will provide almost any request depth.

Finally, the HealthCore platform also makes use of a token system. For medical patients, the token serves as a formal identifier within the ecosystem, as well as providing a Sybil mechanism (a form of extended security against malicious actors). The tokens will initially be deployed on top of the Ethereum Blockchain as ERC standard assets. The use of ERC is due to its widespread recognition as the global token standard; interoperability is key in the long-term suitability of the HealthCore project.

Blockchain is already being used to do everything from securely encrypt patient data to manage the outbreak of harmful diseases. Blockchain's ability to keep an incorruptible, decentralized, and transparent log of all patient data makes it a technology ready-made for security applications. Moreover, blockchain is both transparent and private, thereby concealing the identity of any individual with complex and secure codes that can protect the sensitivity of medical data. The decentralized nature of the technology also allows patients, doctors, and healthcare providers to share information quickly and safely.

Multi-signature schemes already have widespread use in cryptocurrency transactions. By requiring multiple keys working in concert before an operation can be completed, any single point of failure is eliminated and the likelihood of hackers controlling all points of entry simultaneously is almost zero. The higher the number of keys required to complete the action, the more difficult it would be for an attacker to break in.

ERC tokens are, again, standard fair in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Non-fungible tokens like those used by HealthCore are used to create verifiable digital scarcity, as well as digital ownership, and the possibility of asset interoperability across multiple platforms.

For the people that interact with health-data as patients, the impact of HealthCore will be profound. The data collected in health-data security breaches includes personal identifying information including name, date of birth, Social Security number, and financial account information that can be used for identity theft. However, unique to the healthcare industry, these breaches also reveal extremely personal information. According to Highland Risk, this can include “…personal information related to a patient’s physical condition, medical ailments, disabilities, sexual behavior, drug or alcohol use, mental health concerns and more…In the highly-publicized data breach of insurance giant Aetna in 2017, improper disclosure revealed the HIV status of over 11,000 individuals. Aetna agreed to a settlement of $17 million, but for the patients whose HIV status had suddenly been exposed, the damage had already been done.”

And this also reveals the impact for healthcare providers themselves. As mentioned above, In 2018, HIPAA settlements and civil monetary penalties related to impermissible disclosure of healthcare records leveled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) totaled $28,683,400, with multi-million-dollar fines for HIPAA violations reportedly now the norm.

In the short-term, LifeRhythm’s goal is to create a successful minimum viable product of the proposed HealthCore System, test and improve that mvp for mass release, and obtain the necessary funding and partnerships to build and grow the project. Although LifeRhythm has a strong background in medical technology and a general plan for design has been completed, no working model of the HealthCore system exists. In order to proceed, research in the form of significant testing must be routinely conducted in order to continually verify the functionality and security of the project. This, along with the development of an operational prototype of the HealthCore platform, will ensure the feasibility, security, availability, and resilience of the system.

In the long-term, LifeRhythm’s goal is to promote and expand global mass adoption for HealthCore; to demonstrate to patients, providers, and payers all of the benefits this technology will bring into the healthcare industry.

The HealthCore system is currently in development and has no active participants.

Within the first year, LifeRhythm expects to be in the quality assurance stage of the MVP and will roll out the platform to small Alpha/Beta testing groups of more no more than 20.

Finally, if the goals of the HealthCore platform are realized, within five years, LifeRhythm expects to have successfully engaged its target demographic within the healthcare industry and will be focusing on expansion of use within the US and global markets. Although it is a lofty goal, it is expected that at least 10 million users will be using the HealthCore platform by this time.

LifeRhythm’s goals for the next year include the completion of the necessary prerequisites for large-scale production of the HealthCore platform. During this first year, the focus will be on continued development of the MVP and testing its efficacy with testing groups.

In the next five years, LifeRhythm aims to reach a total customer usage of 10-20 million persons. This includes patients, providers and payers. This will be accomplished via marketing campaigns aimed at informing the public and providers about the benefits of the platform. Once people see how HealthCore can benefit all aspects of healthcare management, heavy adoption will follow.

In the long term, LifeRhythm’s goal is to see HealthCore become the new global standard for medical and healthcare operations; to have patients, providers, and payers fully integrated into the system, thus reducing costs and improving quality and effectiveness for all parties.

The largest barrier facing the successful implementation of the HealthCore system is antiquated legacy systems. Healthcare administration is not welcoming to change. As this is a relatively new technology, there may be resistance to adoption at many levels of the healthcare industry. 

The simplest way to overcome the barrier of adoption resistance is simply to put the HealthCore platform in front of as many healthcare providers as possible, thereby successfully demonstrating the benefits of this system. With the never before seen security, scalability, ease of use, reduced operational costs, and error mitigation, that the platform provides, even the most stubborn administrators will eventually be willing to adopt this new technology.

Currently, the LifeRhythm team is composed of a diverse group of 10-12 team members that all believe in the goals and ideals of the company. Due to funding constraints, most of our team donates their time and services. While other technical staff is paid on a contractor/per project basis. As we are able to attain additional sources of funding, we plan on bringing people onboard in full and part time capacities.

The HealthCore project will developed and implemented by LifeRhythm Medical Services and led by LifeRhythm Labs, Inc. LifeRhythm Labs is a people-centered, innovation-driven company focused on delivering highly gainful digital solutions, products, and strategies to growing startups. With over 20 years’ experience spanning multiple industries, the team at LifeRhythm recognizes the intimate role technology plays in human life now, and believes its inclusion will only increase. They care about people and aim to advance a thriving society with their services on the basis of health, fulfilment, and happiness.

Leading this project will be the ineffable members of the LifeRhythm team:

Troy J. Acevedo, Founder & CEO

Marcus Baker, COO

Andrey Didovskiy, CTO

Apurva Patel, CFO

Chris Jones, CMO

Nabila Patel, Chief Medical Advisor

William Lacy, Director of Social Life Entertainment

Md Aminul, Lead Web Developer

Saifullah Ali, Lead Graphics Designer

Jesus Mora, Lead Content Creator

LifeRhythm does not currently partner with any organizations on the HealthCore project.

LifeRhythm is company dedicated to making a difference for humanity, a company the strives to put technology to use to accomplish great things.

The HealthCore platform provides value to its customers, the patients, workers, and providers of the healthcare industry by providing a secure platform for storage, transfer, and access to data. For patients, this means no more breaches that put their personal data or private medical information at risk. For healthcare workers, this means fast and reliable access to patient data when they need it. For providers, this means a secure means of storing and transferring data that will eliminate costly security break-ins and bolster patient confidence.

HealthCore offers a platform for all healthcare services. By engaging in HealthCore’s integrated app, API, and cloud services, customers never have to leave the security that the platform provides, regardless of their health-data needs.

LifeRhythm’s HealthCore system is still in its infancy. The first step to bringing the platform to commercial viability and self-sustainability is to seek grants and other donations. This will allow the technical, quality testing, and other developmental task to be undertaken in a way that ensures long-term viability.

Once viability has been ensured via a working MVP, LifeRhythm will begin seeking invest from venture capital firms. This will be closely followed by asset sales that will ultimately guarantee the self-sustaining nature of the project.

In the long term, the option of taking the company public will be thoroughly vetted.

The Solve program would be a great asset to LifeRhythm and its HealthCore Ecosystem. As an organization looking to test and develop a prototype the mentoring, investor partnerships, and media coaching will be invaluable tools for success.

As one of the primary barriers to successful implementation of the HealthCore Ecosystem is administrative systems which are resistant to change, the mentoring and distribution services offered by Solve will be very useful. It is hoped that the expertise of the Solve team will help LifeRhythm in developing solutions to this and other challenges. Although the LifeRhythm team is extremely open to mentorship and coaching suggestions, it is expected that these solutions will be largely marketing-based in nature. If HealthCore is put into the hands of the people that need it, it will be quickly adopted.

By partnering with teams that focus on service distribution and marketing, it is hoped that HealthCore will have the best possible chance to be presented to the people and organizations that need it most.

Although help, advice, and mentoring will be welcomed from all angles, LifeRhythm’s extensive background in the technology-innovation field gives the team confidence in the partnerships that Solve offers: business model, funding and revenue, board members, etc.

LifeRhythm welcomes any individual, team or organization that wants to assist in the reform of the global healthcare industry.

Over the course of my life, I have always considered myself to be a humanitarian. Often feeling deep and personal attachments for people and situations taking place across the globe.

As time passed, I found myself engaged in technological advancements geared towards making the world a better place. Things which could truly advance humanity for the better.

The catalyst for HealthCore, is owed to my ex-wife. A loving, caring and dedicated woman who always gives more of herself than she ever expects in return. She was diagnosed with a chronic and severe medical condition, one which would eventually take her life.

I began to notice issues in her treatment. Providers not communicating information. Payers not being able to reconcile accounts. All while she had almost no idea of what was going on at any given time. As an expat, I could totally relate to this as well. Seeing a doctor overseas, what a nightmare! Thus, the concept was born.

If selected for The Elevate Prize, the LifeRhythm team would use the $300,000 to develop the HealthCore system, ensuring that people everywhere have access to their health-data and knowledge. We would also make full use of the professional development services and mentorship offered by the prize as well as work closely with industry leaders to better understand the field. Finally, we would be thrilled for the services offered by the media and marketing teams. We truly believe that seeing what our product can do will be enough to change minds.

LifeRhythm’s HealthCore platform is a technology that will establish a secure, scale-able, efficient and robust method to streamline the healthcare industry as a whole; To increase communication between patient, provider, and payer; To make the system actually be cost effective and cost efficient; To make medicine be a true utility.

The HealthCore platform relies on a number of highly scientific data-based technologies to ensure proper operation and flawless data security. These include a multi-layer blockchain and crypto-based environment to safeguard data security, multi-signature schemes to eliminate weak-links in the key system, and the implementation of a non-fungible token system to create unique identifiers for patients.

If selected for the AI for Humanity Prize, the LifeRhythm team would use the funds to continue development of the HealthCore system. Specifically, it is LifeRhythm’s goal to use technology to better the live of people around the world through healthcare. Specifically, the HealthCore system will ensure people can smoothly access their health-data anywhere in the world and seeks to make health-data breaches, bureaucratic payment systems, and inaccessible patient records things of the past.

The HealthCore system will provide reliable, fast, and secure health-data for patients, providers, and payers around the world. Although this system seeks to benefit all that use it, women are likely to be impacted more dramatically by its implementation.

Around the world, many women do not enjoy basic rights to autonomy concerning their own health. This can often lead to women being left out of the decision-making processes for their own healthcare needs. With easy and secure access health-data, include web and mobile app-based services, women will have more opportunities to make informed decisions about their healthcare options.

If awarded the Innovation for Women Prize, the LifeRhythm team would continue its development of the HealthCore system. In particular, this prize would allow the team to focus the challenges facing access to health-data for women and ensure that their needs are being met.

The proposed HealthCore technology has the potential to impact refugees in a variety of ways.

According to the World Health Organization, the recent large-scale population movement has posed epidemiological and health system challenges, to which public health and health systems must adjust. With an estimated 68 million people forcibly displaced from their homes globally, people need help.

For those refugees without a stable ‘status’ in their host country, the access to secure information will be a boon. HealthCore will ensure that refugees have an informed voice about their own health.

With the help of the Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee action, LifeRhythm would focus its initial efforts on the use of HealthCore in refugee communities. With this support, the HealthCore service could be tailored to fit the needs of this underserved and underserviced community. 

LifeRhythm Labs’ HealthCore platform addresses the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 3: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

In the fight against infectious diseases, HealthCore’s value is in its ability to provide fast and reliable patient data. With this in place, the tracking of all types of illnesses becomes easier and faster. The American Medical Association Journal of Ethics reports that “when a diagnosis of a reportable or “notifiable” infectious disease is made, physicians and other health care providers including infection control practitioners and hospital microbiology laboratories are required to notify their state health department by telephone, fax, mail, or by secure, Internet-based systems.” With the HealthCore system in place, then these healthcare providers will have a built-in system for reliable notification. Further, the journal indicates that “information is collected at the discretion of the state or local health department and varies with the disease in question”, but that, while health department-initiated surveillance is “typically superior to passive surveillance [systems], [it] involves additional cost and personnel time.” Here again, the HealthCore system offers a solution that is both cost efficient and yet proactive in its approach.

In the establishment of health systems, HealthCore ensures that necessary health-data systems are available anywhere in the world and accessible to all. The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reports that “countries [in Africa] need to develop comprehensive national plans for health information that address the full range of data needs and data sources and that include provision for building national capacities for data generation, analysis, dissemination and use.” This is exactly the work that is at the core of LifeRhythm’s HealthCore platform.

With the financial support of the People’s Prize, the LifeRhythm would be able to enact the HealthCore system quickly and to a much wider audience. The unique aspect that The People’s Prize brings to HealthCore is the crowdfunding facet. With this, the needs of the public and their concerns regarding their own health-data can be the focal point of HealthCore’s mission.