Bitfury – Longenesis Launch Healthcare Blockchain System
The Bitfury Group and Longenesis, the health data company, announced via a press release on April 4 that they had jointly launched a Blockchain-powered consent management system designed for the healthcare industry.
Addressing Issues in the Healthcare Industry
According to the press release, this new system will address issues that the healthcare industry currently faces such as user consent for research projects that are either ongoing or upcoming, being compliant with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and the streamlining of data collation for purposes of medical research.
All data and updates that is collected by the new consent management system is then recorded and timestamped on the Blockchain ExonumTM. The timestamping is for future auditing.
This system can then be used either as a complete data-management system or as an add-on to already exiting data systems that are being used for user the storage of user consent.
The Chief Executive Officer of Insilico Medicine Inc., Alex Zhavoronkov states that while regulations can change from country to country, research organizations should focus on deploying content management systems that will protect user data far better than those regulations. He also states that consent procedures should be rapid, pain-free, cost efficient as well as universal so that patients are completely educated as well as protected.
Transforming Electronic Health Information
Organizations across the globe are now actively employing Blockchain solutions to help transform electronic health information.
In February this year, Bitfury partnered with Medical Diagnostic Web (MDW), a radiology Blockchain-based marketplace, to develop a Blockchain-powered medical imaging system.
In fact, Bitfury and Longenesis are planning to use that collaboration to develop a platform to maintain, share and secure medical imaging as well as diagnostics information like CT scans and X-rays.
Then, a month later in March, the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT partnered with the major hospital, Seoul Medical Center, to develop the Smart Hospital, a project focused on improving data accuracy and reducing processing time for the hospital.
University of San Francisco academics have also proposed solutions by which medical data can be shared using a Blockchain-powered system. This system will purportedly improve the traceability as well as immutability of the collected medical data and ensure its trustworthiness. Additionally, this system will advance methods by which adverse events in research can be reported. It will also improve the management systems of medical records.