An anonymous patient-researcher matching system has four key advantages: 1) It allows for greater enrollment by letting patients remain anonymous, 2) It improves data quality by encouraging more honest responses from anonymous patients, 3) It is more cost-effective by avoiding identifiable patient data laws, and 4) anonymity is easily understood by the general public. The system uses reversible encryption to protect user identities and allows patients to control access to their medical data through authorization tokens. This maximizes patient engagement by letting them control their data and medical care while initially matching with researchers anonymously.

1. An Concept Model of Anonymous Patient-Researcher Matching:
Redwoodland LLC: 817 416 5478
 Confidentiality that allows a matching system to enroll
more people: most people would not care as much for their
Four advantages
medical data usage if the owner can remain anonymous.
for an anonymous
 Confidence and trust that improves the quality of patient match system
data: a patient is more honest in an anonymous environment.
As a result, a system is more likely to get more realistic data
that may contain information normal medical institutions will
never be able to collect.
 Cost effective implementation: relevant patient date safety
laws are for “identifiable patient data” and not applicable to an
anonymous system. An anonymous system is more
affordable.
 “Staying anonymous” is a very marketable concept that
can be easily understood by the general public.

2. Three User Classes for Anonymous User Management
Any registered user belongs to
the anonymous user class.
A patient starts a
researcher/physician match
from this account;
A subset of anonymous users
are confidential users. They
use a reversible encryption
to protect their identity.
They use a key to retrieve
their identity information
when needed;
A subset of confidential users
are physicians/researchers.
They use this account for
patient-researcher match.

3. Gently Engage Patients by Informative, Interactive Portals
so that they will come back
 Using Joomla as a Content Management
System to achieve a cost effective
commercial grade portal;
 Frequently updated website provides reasons
for the users to come back often even if they
do not need to see a doctor;
 Based on his/her condition, customized home
page and medical advice for a registered
user;
 Provide smart search for a patient’s network
so that patients can find people with similar
medical problems.
 Provide a one-way communication by
displaying researcher’s message when a
patient logs in to his/her account. It is
needed for an anonymous account that
does not have other contact information.

4. How to do an Anonymous Patient-Researcher Matching
Physicians can: search patient’s notes and medical data for a specific condition; get a special
permit to access a predefined medical history from a patient.
Patients can: choose a doctor for Telemedicine and import/input/delete their medical data.
 A quantitative control token specifies its
expiration date, the portion of medical history of
a patient that can be accessed by a physician.
 This physician/researcher uses this token given
by a patient to access predefined medical data
using the left page.
 A researcher can also do a general key word
search from his/her registered account against
the massive anonymous patient’s account data.
 A patient search/match a physician
from a telemedicine styled page. He
or she might use a private key to
unlock his/her identity information
online so that a formal service
request can be generated and sent
to a chosen physician using the
right page.

5. Maximizing Patient-Centeredness and Patient
Engagement: Let Them Stay Anonymous, Have Full Control While
the Initial Matching is Being Done
 Patients still fully control their medical records;
 By using a security token, a patient can precisely
control what portion of his/her medical history can be
accessed by a physician;
 Optionally unlock encrypted identity information for a
normal medical practice like telemedicine or a
researcher-patient engagement;
 Physicians can search/match a patient’s records and
confidentially communicate with this patient for
further service if a patient account preference permits
such a contact.
 Bottom line: treat your patient gently so that they will
come, stay and let physicians do the search and
match.