[Shubh Singh]

Great question. The penetration of mobile devices and data networks have actually increased a lot in the last few years so that they are already used very widely. This is not just true in India but also in other countries. Additionally, for an initiative such as UNHIN we are designing for the future, and the penetration of mobile technology will only increase in the coming years. The apps on UNHIN< such as the health wallet will therefore take a mobile first design.

Governments and corporations the world over are already undertaking large initiatives to increase the availability of mobile devices and data networks, so they are laying a foundation for the UNHIN.

Even in cases where people in underprivileged areas do not have or cannot use mobile devices, there will be great benefits from the UNHIN. As an example a physician doing voluntary work in a remote area in Africa can create a UNHIN record on behalf of the patient, with the patient’s authorization. In future if a different vlunteer physician comes to provide services, they will find the full record created by previous physicians on the UNHIN.

[Shubh Singh]

The Blockchain will confirm healthcare transactions and make sure that the report is indeed provided by a physician or a lab that has conducted the test. What this means is that it will not be possible for someone to fake a physician’s identity and put data into a patient’s record. If a lab or physician fakes a result, there will be community processes to report that and the lab or physician making the false report will be identified. In this case the lab/physician will not just be penalized on the network by losing their staked tokens, the network will also provide immutable recorded information for taking legal action.

[Shubh Singh]

Good questions. We must in fact keep this in mind for all regions of the world, not just developing nations. The health wallets with which individuals interact with the UNHIN will have a very user friendly and easy to use design which we will test extensively. It will be designed so that it is highly intuitive for users and people should be able to use it without any training, user manuals, etc. This design will be supplemented with videos and other guides to make it still easier and also to help people with more advanced features where they may need information.

The UNHIN will also be widely publicized to make people aware of its benefits and how they can use it.

The health wallet and UNHIN will provide users with ready to use sharing modes so that they don’t have to think about what information to share and not to share. For example, they will have an option to share their record with a general physician, or a cardiologist, or even a nutritionist. Thsi will take them through a very simple user interface wizard which will allow them to choose the type of provider with whom they want to share their information. It will select the common parts of their health record that is normally shared with that type of provider.

This can still be challenging in regions where there is a lack of education and people may not understand the app. In such scenarios, the UNHIN will still improve the conditions we have today wherein they can manage their health record with assistance from their physician. As an example, lets say if physicians are visiting a remote village to provide health services, if they put the information for patients in the UNHIN, it will be biometrically linked with the patient, and available for a different physician who may visit the village in the future. Also, it will maintain an electronic record of who has accessed the patient’s information to assist them in maintaining their record.

In every situation, the UNHIN will improve things as compared to today even if it doesn’t solve the problem fully. This is in fact a very important point to understand. Healthcare is a complex domain and health information is hard to handle in the proper way, therefore it may not be possible to solve every problem fully, but the UNHIN will significantly improve the handling, management and security of information as compared to today.

[Shubh Singh]

Yes, UNHIN will absolutely handle this usecase. An individual who has their health record on UNHIN will be able to share the relevant test result or an appropriate summary of their record with an enterprise they are going to join. The UNHIN health wallet will make this very easy by giving an individual an option to share a specific test result, or an option for “share health record summary with employer”, which will pre-select appropriate information from their health record that is appropriate for an employer and share just that, so that they don’t share any sensitive information.

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