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Covid-19 outbreak represents an exceptional test of the flexibility and the efficiency of patient medical records transfer among healthcare providers which ended up in boundless interruption to the healthcare industry. This public crisis has pushed for an urgent innovation of the patient medical records transference (PMRT) system to meet the needs and provide appropriate patient care. Moreover, the drawback effects of Covid-19 changed the healthcare system forever, more patients are requesting more control, secure, and smoother experience when they want access to their health records. However, the problems stem from the lack of interoperability among the healthcare system and providers and the added burden of cyber-attacks on an already stressed system call for an immediate solution. In this work, we present a secured blockchain framework that ensures patients full ownership over their medical data which can be stored in their private IPFS and later can be shared with an authorized provider. The analysis of the proposed security and privacy aspects shows promising results in providing time savings and resulted in enhanced confidentiality and less disruption in patient-provider interactions.
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Open data on industry payments to healthcare providers reveal potential hidden costs to the public
Abstract Healthcare industry players make payments to medical providers for non-research expenses. While these payments may pose conflicts of interest, their relationship with overall healthcare costs remains largely unknown. In this study, we linked Open Payments data on providers’ industry payments with Medicare data on healthcare costs. We investigated 374,766 providers’ industry payments and healthcare costs. We demonstrate that providers receiving higher amounts of industry payments tend to bill higher drug and medical costs. Specifically, we find that a 10% increase in industry payments is associated with 1.3% higher medical and 1.8% higher drug costs. For a typical provider, for example, a 10% or $25 increase in annual industry payments would be associated with approximately $1,100 higher medical costs and $100 higher drug costs. Furthermore, the association between payments and healthcare costs varies markedly across states and correlates with political leaning, being stronger in more conservative states.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1916518
- PAR ID:
- 10154029
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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