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ethereum-hipaa-audit-log

A prototype implementation of a blockchain HIPAA audit log using ethereum and meteor

Concept

A HIPAA audit log keeps track of which users access which patients at what time.
Implementing this functionality using blockchain is interesting because:

  1. Blockchain is immutable - once an audit record is stored, it cannot be removed or changed.
  2. Blockchain is built on public key cryptography. Users and patients could have their own unique public keys on the blockchain that can be referenced by the audit log without revealing the actual users identity or any PHI.
  3. Blockchain is accessible - the audit records can be easily accessed by anonymous users without revealing any PHI

This prototype uses ethereum for the blockchain implementation and has a smart contract that contains an audit log entry (see contracts/auditEntry.sol).

Pre-requisites

  1. Setup a private ethereum network from here: https://github.com/chafey/ethereum-private-network

  2. Meteor

How to run

Make sure your ethereum private test network is running

Start the meteor application:

cd hipaaAuditLog

meteor

Open your web browser to localhost:3000

Click "Sign in" and use the credentials:

username: [email protected]

password: test

You should now see a patient record for "John Doe with MRN 1234".
Every time you click the record, the client will call a meteor method on the server side which will create a new auditLog transaction in your ethereum private test network blockchain:

I20170125-08:51:15.050(-6)? patientViewed  1234
I20170125-08:51:15.052(-6)? Adding auditEntry to ethereum
I20170125-08:51:22.903(-6)? Contract mined! address: 0x71cfbe86bac365e334a80fd1e49ab253a05d4df4 transactionHash: 0x4103ba897b342b6679c812df7cecae42d6d081516ecc7b80c80597720f07cf40

What just happened?

Both the patient and the user have an account on the ethereum test network and the address of those accounts (the public key) are stored in the hipaa audit log entry.

Ideas for the future

  1. Build a blockchain hipaa audit log index and browser. Iterate over the audit entries in the blockchain and build up a local indexed databases that lets a user run reports such as "who are the users that accessed this patient", "which patients did this user access" and "what audit entries occurred during this time period".
  2. Create a Patient contract and store HIPAA audit logs in it. This would make it easier to find out who accessed a given patient. It may also reduce the storage required. New entries would fire events that could be listened to.
  3. Create a User contract and store HIPAA Audit logs in it. This would make it easier to find out which patients a given user accessed. It may also reduce the storage required. New entries would fire events that could be listened to.