Keeping up with technologies changing how healthcare is delivered. Can a continuously growing chain of blocks using cryptography have applications in healthcare? Once written as two words, block chain, now is known as blockchain. But what is it? Why is everyone talking about it? And how can it help healthcare? We are going to search out the answers to these questions and report regularly as this technology integrates itself into healthcare.
Blockchain at HIMSS
You could not go 10 minutes in any direction last week at HIMSS without hearing the word blockchain. Here are some vendor highlights:
EHNAC and the Trust Exchange Accreditation Program
My HIMSS Highlight with Executive Director of EHNAC, Lee Barrett discussing blockchain and its use cases.
Secant Healthcare Launches Blockchain Data Technology at Himss18 – Game changing pioneer designed blockchain Initiative has limitless possibilities for healthcare. Secant Healthcare Inc., a Chicago based global healthcare solutions company, announced the first glimpse of its unique Blockchain Data Integrity initiative at HIMSS18. This thought-leading initiative is seeking to deliver a unique, targeted approach to data integrity and transformation in the imaging informatics arena.
Machine Learning and Blockchain Technologies Enable HSBlox’s RevBlox to Revolutionize Claims Management Challenges with a Prospective Approach – RevBlox brings forward next-generation workflow and deploys advanced technologies, including machine learning and blockchain/private distributed ledger technology (DLT), to prospectively help providers reduce claims denials and secure payment of patient financial responsibilities for care. It also enables payers to create new levels of transparency around real-time adjudication of claims and reimbursement, as well as the immediate generation of explanation of benefits (EOBs) for members.
ShoCard and RF IDeas Debut Blockchain Technology-Enabled Mobile Credential Reader Solution – The collaboration marks ShoCard’s entry into the healthcare industry, debuting first-of-its-kind enterprise solution at HIMSS. ShoCard, a blockchain-based identity management ecosystem, together with RF IDeas, Inc., a leading innovator and manufacturer of employee badge readers for in-building applications such as computer access, identification and secure print, demonstrated the first mobile credential reader solution using the blockchain.
News & Resources
ONC Interoperability Proving Ground – Project: Distributed Data Sharing Hyperledger (DDASH)
DDASH is an open-source protocol for information exchange across blockchain networks. Our goals are to eliminate barriers to information exchange within and among organizations and to build open economies around health information. DDASH allows Ethereum applications to run securely and inexpensively on private Ethereum networks while enabling their integration with the main Ethereum network. The result is a mechanism for health information exchange via transfer of information and value among the main Ethereum network and private Ethereum networks.
The Cryptolina Blockchain Expo
June 15 and 16 in Raleigh NC – Since 2014, the exposition has attracted some of the industry’s top innovators, investors and thought-leaders dedicated to blockchain-based technologies and has won accolades from across the cryptocurrency community.
The Basics
- Ted Talk –How the blockchain is changing money and business, Don Tapscott. Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he says, represents nothing less than the second generation of the internet and holds the potential to transform money, business, government and society.
- From the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, by Alexander W. Peters, MD, Brian M. Till, John G. Meara, MD, DMD, MBA, FACS and Salim Afshar, MD, DMD, FACS, Blockchain technology in health care: A primer for surgeons.
- From the Blockchain Unleashed: IBM Blockchain Blog, the Blockchain in Healthcare category.