Equal-Term Matching for Tokenized Healthcare Data Rights under Smart Contract Restrictions

Abstract

Tokenized healthcare data rights can make consent, purpose limitation, expiry, and revocation auditable, but they also create a difficult exchange problem. A participant that releases a restricted data right should not receive an unrestricted right simply because a matching algorithm finds a welfare-improving cycle. This article develops an equal-term matching framework for tokenized healthcare data rights under smart-contract restrictions. Each contract combines a data-right token with a restriction term, and the equal-term property requires the received term to match the term under which the participant's endowed right is released. We adapt a dual top-trading-cycle mechanism to the healthcare setting and propose a smart-contract architecture that keeps clinical data off-chain while recording verifiable consent, term, and settlement events. A 500-market simulation shows that equal-term dual matching preserves most welfare gains from exchange while eliminating term-mismatch violations, supporting a practical balance between allocative efficiency and patient-centered rights consistency.