The complex nature of several aspects of the healthcare system sometimes seem to suggest that the system is not, in fact, built for the stakeholder it is meant to serve – the patient or healthcare consumer. Consumers struggle to get adequate time with the right healthcare providers, to obtain accurate and up-to-date health information, to navigate the wieldy health insurance industry, and to pay for expensive medical interventions that may or may not be necessary. Perhaps most frustrating to consumers, is the hassle of accessing or sharing their own personal health information.
A Complex Health System Reflects Complex Healthcare Demands
Of course the system has not been built with the goal of being complex or esoteric. The intention behind difficult-to-access health data is not to keep patients or their families in the dark about pertinent health information. Instead, access has become difficult in response to growing needs and demands for data privacy and security. Just as consumers want to be able to access their own health records at will, they also want their records kept private and secure from manipulation or modification.
While the shift to electronic health records (EHRs), which has been broadly adopted by healthcare providers, has improved the ability of consumers to readily access their records, these EHR systems do not adequately address privacy and security issues, nor are they as efficient as they theoretically might have been. Indeed, EHRs tend to suffer from interoperability problems, which prevent different types of EHR systems from interacting seamlessly with others. Thus, if a consumer sees healthcare providers that use distinct EHR systems, those providers may not be able to share the consumer’s health-related information in an efficient or precise manner.
Blockchain Can Enhance Access in a Secure Way While Providing Additional Consumer Benefits
The Patientory App for consumers makes it easier for patients to access, store, and manage their health information in a simple and secure way while also providing other solutions to consumer-facing challenges in healthcare. An important distinction of the Patientory App is it is a distributed App, or DApp, rather than a traditional App. DApps leverage blockchain technology, and specifically, have a distributed nature. In other words, DApps are applications that interface with blockchains, which are not stored or controlled by a single entity or in a single location. This means that a particular EHR or healthcare provider does not solely control an individual’s healthcare data, thus allowing for more efficient, seamless, and secure sharing of healthcare data among different providers and EHR platforms.
Using the Patientory App, consumers are not only able to access their health information themselves able to grant selected access permissions to others, but they can also use the App to better manage their health continuously and in real-time. For instance, they can set health-related goals, track behavior and progress, and access educational or support tools, resources, and communities. In addition, consumers can use the Patientory App to navigate payment options and execute individual payments. Given the breadth of solutions that the Patientory App provides – and its potential to cumulatively collect consumers’ information over the lifespan – the App is poised to become a one-stop-shop for healthcare consumers looking to take control of both their health and health-related factors like health finances. The greater transparency afforded by the App can even drive down healthcare costs by enhancing preventative care and reducing crisis management and hospital readmissions.
The Patientory App also utilizes the Patientory utility currency, PTOY , where PTOY coins can be used for transactions and storage within the private, permissioned blockchain. As Patientory also has a dashboard offering for other healthcare stakeholders, including healthcare providers and payers, the company is building a fail-safe blockchain infrastructure with solid interoperability capabilities. The company is therefore taking a 360-degree approach to its blockchain solution for healthcare so that the information and value that each stakeholder brings can be efficiently transferred to other stakeholders, and individuals from all corners of the healthcare system can benefit.