Category: Healthcare Providers

Categories
Blockchain DApps FHIR Healthcare Providers Press

Revolutionizing Healthcare Data Management: Google Cloud + Patientory

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, technology has become an indispensable tool for improving patient outcomes, enhancing care delivery, and reducing costs. Patientory, a leading innovator in the field, is at the forefront of this transformation with its groundbreaking blockchain-powered solutions.

Patientory offers a comprehensive suite of products designed to revolutionize healthcare data management. At the heart of its offerings is the Neith Analytics dashboard, a powerful tool that integrates with major electronic health record (EHR) systems, such as Epic, Cerner, and Allscripts. The Neith dashboard facilitates population health data management by providing secure access to patient data analytics residing on the Patientory health information exchange blockchain network.

Strategic partnerships that leverage the strengths of diverse platforms can create unprecedented opportunities in healthcare technology. A prime example of this is the recent collaboration between Patientory, a leading player in blockchain-based health data management, and Google MedLM, an advanced medical language model. This partnership promises to transform the way pharmaceutical companies recruit patients for clinical trials and submit proposals to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Through Google Cloud for startup’s funding and resources, Patientory is able to ramp up to meet pharmaceutical companies’ top challenges.

Bridging the Gap in Patient Recruitment

Patient recruitment has long been a bottleneck in clinical trials. Traditional recruitment methods are often slow, inefficient, and costly, delaying critical research and the delivery of new therapies to market. This is where Patientory’s innovative health data management solutions come into play. By utilizing blockchain technology, Patientory provides a secure and decentralized platform for storing and managing patient health records.

Google MedLM, on the other hand, is a powerful AI-driven language model specifically designed for medical applications. It can process vast amounts of medical literature, clinical trial data, and patient records, extracting meaningful insights and patterns that are crucial for identifying suitable candidates for clinical trials.

By integrating Google MedLM’s capabilities with Patientory’s blockchain platform, pharmaceutical companies can now access a more refined and expansive pool of potential trial participants. Google MedLM’s advanced data analytics can swiftly sift through millions of health records, identifying patients who meet the stringent criteria for specific trials. This speeds up the recruitment process, ensuring that trials can commence without unnecessary delays.

Enhancing FDA Submission Processes

The complexity of submitting a proposal to the FDA cannot be understated. It requires meticulous documentation, comprehensive data analysis, and an impeccable presentation of the trial’s potential benefits and risks. Traditionally, this process has been labor-intensive and prone to human error, often leading to prolonged review times.

The Patientory-Google MedLM partnership addresses these challenges head-on. Google MedLM’s ability to process and analyze clinical trial data extends to the preparation of FDA submission documents. Its natural language processing capabilities enable it to generate precise and comprehensive reports, ensuring that all necessary information is presented in a clear and structured manner.

Patientory’s secure blockchain infrastructure ensures that all data used in the submission process is tamper-proof and verifiable. This not only enhances the integrity of the submission but also builds trust with the FDA, potentially accelerating the approval process.

The Synergy of Technology and Healthcare

The collaboration between Patientory and Google MedLM represents a significant step forward in the integration of cutting-edge technology with healthcare. This partnership exemplifies how AI and blockchain can be harnessed together to solve complex problems, from patient recruitment to regulatory submissions.

For pharmaceutical companies, this means a more efficient pathway from research to market. The ability to recruit patients swiftly and submit robust, data-driven proposals to the FDA can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with bringing new drugs to market. For patients, this translates to quicker access to potentially life-saving therapies and treatments.

Looking Ahead

As the healthcare industry continues to embrace digital transformation, the Patientory-Google MedLM partnership stands as a beacon of innovation. By streamlining the critical phases of clinical trials and regulatory submissions, this collaboration not only enhances efficiency but also paves the way for more rapid advancements in medical research and patient care.

In the near future, we can expect to see even more groundbreaking collaborations that leverage the strengths of AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies. These advancements will continue to shape the healthcare landscape, making it more responsive, efficient, and patient-centric.

Stay tuned as we follow the developments of this exciting partnership and its impact on the pharmaceutical industry and beyond. The future of healthcare is indeed bright, and it’s partnerships like these that are lighting the way.

Categories
Blockchain Covid-19 Healthcare Providers Patients Public Health

Commercially Successful Blockchain Healthcare Projects

Patientory is on the top 10 list of successful blockchain companies that are thriving today and has an established blockchain that empowers users to own their health data securely. 

Background:

The healthcare industry is the new frontier for blockchain technology. Given its properties of  im-mutability and decentralization, blockchain represents an opportunity for an unprecedented level of  privacy and security for all stakeholders by ensuring data integrity while giving patients control over their own health data. On a backdrop of  rising interest in blockchain in general and blockchain healthcare applications in particular, there has been a proliferation of  blockchain healthcare projects over the past few years. 

Review

Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY) aims to review to identify and understand real-world blockchain healthcare projects that have attained commercial success in the highly competitive blockchain market. This review revealed that blockchain health projects currently comprise a small fraction of the overall number of commercially successful blockchain projects. However, because this sub-industry is still in its early stages, there are reasons to be optimistic that many more blockchain health projects will emerge and attain commercial success in future. Findings from this review done from an entrepreneurial perspective should help with the identification of future projects most likely to succeed.

Blockchain in Clinical Trials Patientory, Inc. 

As part of the continuous effort and response to Covid 19, Patientory assisted Moderna and Novavax  in recruiting for underrepresented and at risk communities at risk for Covid 19. Read more about it here. 

For the complete review, https://bit.ly/3sEQeVq

About The Journal

Blockchain in Healthcare Today is the world’s first peer review journal that amplifies and disseminates distributed ledger technology research and innovations in the healthcare sector. The  preeminent open-access journal facilitates sharing, discussion and consensus building for a multi-disciplinary market across a global community of stakeholders engaged in discovering, implementing and modernizing quality affordable health systems and care for health citizens. The journal is published on a continuous basis in order to accelerate sharing rigorously vetted theoretical and experiential knowledge required for a growth sector. A world-class peer-review board endeavors to offer rapid peer review and includes constructive commentary to strengthen work.

About Patientory Inc:

Patientory democratizes individual ownership of the world’s health data and incentives to improve health outcomes. Patientory Inc. is a population health data management and analytics company. Through its two decentralized applications, the Patientory mobile app and enterprise software tool Neith, Patientory Inc. provides patients with ownership and insights and enterprises with comprehensive healthcare data intelligence. This is achieved by integrating a blockchain enabled network to gather and analyze siloed healthcare data, which includes daily lifestyle factors, and in turn, reduce the cost of care.

More about the article, please visit here,

https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/article/view/166

Categories
Covid-19 Healthcare Providers Partners

Patientory Supports Moderna in Diversity Enrollment for Phase 3 Study of its COVID-19 Vaccine

Fulfilling a commitment to diversity and inclusion in the Phase 3 COVE Study of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, Moderna enlisted Patientory among other digital health companies for patient recruitment.

Patientory is super excited to contribute to Moderna’s Phase 3 trial enrollment as a trusted partner with Trialscope.

If you are interested in participating in the Moderna clinical trial, please register here.

Read more about the official press release here.

About TrialScope 

TrialScope gives your clinical trial data superpowers™. The TrialScope Transparency Cloud™ makes centralizing, structuring and activating clinical trial information simple, for use across the organization and at every stage of the study. Our integrated platform is used by 16 of the top 20 clinical trial sponsors in the world, who rely on TrialScope to ensure disclosure compliance, maximize trial transparency, improve patient engagement and accelerate study recruitment. To learn more, visit TrialScope.com.

About Patientory:

Patientory empowers healthcare systems, providers, and consumers with a single, secure application for sharing healthcare data, providing unprecedented insight into each patient’s health and resulting in better, healthier outcomes.  Patientory’s applications provide increased insight into an individual’s health management and empowers people to make better decisions, coordinate between care providers, and receive better care overall.

Categories
Blockchain Healthcare Providers Patients Public Health

Integrations of SDOH into Healthcare Technology

Patients are people first; treating them holistically requires the use of insights derived from both clinical and non-clinical data. To achieve full integration of SDOH into healthcare true collaboration among clinical and social entities are a necessary step in redefining how healthcare serves its people.

Today, Screening for social determinants of health(SDOH)is increasingly done in primary and specialty care settings. Payers and health care organizations have recognized the importance of these determinants not just to clinical outcomes but also to cost and use of services. Toward that end, both clinical and financial cases have been made for an expanded focus on SDOH for many, if not all, patients. However, a part from system challenges, one of the biggest challenges that this will have moving forward towards patient populations is one of ethics and the acceptance of appropriate standardization processes and guidelines. Some SDOH is driven by complex social and structural factors, such as racism immigration status, and may be difficult to describe in a diagnostic construct such as ICD-10.

Creating a “perfect” bridge between the medical and social construct specifically for an individual is not an easy feat oftentimes burdened with gaining access to information deemed more sensitive that individuals would want to share in an office visit. Health has deep roots in communities, non-healthcare institutions, policies, and social hierarchies such as those posed by race, class, and gender. Quantifying that complexity is difficult and needs cooperation from these organizations. When asked which non-medical barriers to care or health the respondents’ organizations plan to act on in the next year, Nearly two-thirds (63.7%) of respondents named care coordination, a traditional companion service to direct medical care, as a key to overcoming barriers. It is important to note in order to achieve full integration of SDOH into healthcare to overcome ethical barriers, compliance, and social constructs true collaboration and partnership among entities serviced by individuals are a necessary step in redefining how healthcare cares for the people it is intended to serve.

You can read the complete journal about the intersection of Blockchain and SDOH at here

Categories
Coronavirus Covid-19 Healthcare Providers Patients Public Health

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) MythBusters

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus.

The disease causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as a cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty breathing. You can protect yourself by washing your hands frequently, avoiding touching your face, and avoiding close contact (1 meter or 3 feet) with people who are unwell. 

WHO Health Alert for coronavirus launches on WhatsApp

To increase access to reliable information, WHO worked with WhatsApp and Facebook to launch a new WHO Health Alert messaging service. The WhatsApp-based service will provide vital information about COVID-19 to millions of people through their mobile phones. The services use an AI chatbot to provide updated information on the pandemic, including how to protect yourself, questions and answers, and the latest news and press coverage. 

The Health Alert service is now available in English and will be introduced in other languages this coming week. This is part of WHO’s a wider initiative to work with technology companies to get accurate health information into the hands of people that need it at this critical time.

Get WhatsApp Updates

Most importantly, we hope that you and your family are safe and remain healthy.

Please consult a doctor if you experience serious symptoms for the disease otherwise stay home and stop the spread.

Here is a list of statements intended to dispel myths about the COVID-19 disease: 

  1. From the evidence so far, the COVID-19 virus can get transmitted everywhere, including hot and humid areas.
  2. Hand dryers and hot baths cannot kill the virus; nor will standing in the sun
  3. Drinking lots of water will not flush out the virus. Eating ice cream won’t freeze the virus either
  4. The virus cannot be transmitted through mosquito bites
  5. Cleaning your nose with soap or sanitizer will not kill the virus
  6. Spraying yourself with or drinking alcohol will not kill the virus
  7. Having lots of vitamin and herbal supplements might build immunity, but will not protect you from getting infected
  8. Holding your breath for 10 seconds without coughing is not a way to confirm whether or not you are infected with COVID-19. The test needs to be done by a medical practitioner. Results take 24 hours
  9. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that cow urine or crushed bull horn can protect a person from the virus.
  10. Flu vaccines do not protect against COVID-19
Categories
Blockchain DApps Healthcare Providers Patients

CASE STUDY: Forging The Path To Consumer-Directed Health Through Blockchain Technology

Overview and Background

Despite incredible advancements over the last decade in converting paper healthcare records into digital data, a vast majority of consumers lack access to their electronic medical records. Sadly, many people cannot manage their healthcare records any better than they could a decade ago or even three decades ago. While it can be easy for some to point the finger at the bureaucracy and red tape of healthcare institutions, the truth is that many of these institutions would like to share data with their patients but don’t have a secure and easy way to do this. This challenging dynamic is because many medical providers use different electronic health record (EHR) systems that actually may not be able to communicate with one another easily. The resulting situation has become a significant problem where patients are caught in the middle of the healthcare industry’s lack of interoperability and without solutions that can provide patients accessible and secure healthcare data.

Patientory DApp Solution

Patientory, a digital health company based in Atlanta, Georgia, has developed a distributed application DApp solution that provides individual consumers with quick, easy, and secure access to their healthcare data. As the industry leader for DApp blockchain solutions, Patientory recently developed the first version of its beta DApp for consumers.

Patientory’s DApp leverages blockchain technology, which is an open and secure technology that captures transaction records on blocks that are connected and stores them on a distributed and encoded database that acts as a ledger. Blockchain has incredible security benefits as the records are spread across a replicated database network in which all the databases are in sync. Users, however, can only access the blocks to which they have permission to. Lastly, all the transactions that happen over blockchain are date and time stamped.

As for DApps, they 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, user-friendly, and secure sharing of healthcare data among different providers
and EHR platforms.

This new DApp solution was created from research data Patientory has collected over the past few years regarding the challenges that healthcare consumers face on a regular basis and how these challenges have evolved over time. With the DApp solution, Patientory’s goal is to create a one-stop-shop solution for healthcare consumers, where they can access their health information, engage in health-related transactions, and become empowered to improve their health by having the necessary data and tools to do so.

The DApp Beta Test

To evaluate the DApp’s product-market fit and overall effectiveness as a solution, Patientory initiated a beta test project with specific goals outlined. The goals of their research were:

  • To verify the efficacy of the distributed App
  • To seek insight into the interface’s user acceptance and general quality
  • To examine product functionality in real-world user environments and test the necessary support infrastructure
  • To collect customer suggestions and testimonials, test the profile establishment protocols and the goal-setting, activity tracking, and wallet functionalities alongside the data storage protocols for securing personal health information (PHI) within the PTOYNET™ private permissioned blockchain
  • To identify opportunities for future development regarding desirable user features and functionality

To best accomplish their goals, 80 beta users were selected to use the app for three months in all functionality areas from setting goals, tracking fitness activities, traveling internationally and utilizing the wallet feature with Dash and PTOY cryptocurrencies. The demographics and personas of the beta users were primarily affluent, health-conscious iPhone owners, with a majority owning one or more cryptocurrencies. These individuals are primarily based in the US, with a majority located in the urban settings of New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, as well as non-US countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland as well as India and Asia. At the end of the three months, the beta users were then
given a detailed survey requesting their feedback on their experience with the DApp solution.

DApp Beta User Survey Results

The below results a summary of key user feedback that Patientory received:

  • The DApp is relevant and engaging.
    • 90% of respondents found the entire app useful with no elements irrelevant.
    • 80% of respondents said that they did not find any parts of the app unnecessarily complicated.
    • More than half of respondents found the app ‘very engaging.’
  • Users found DApp most useful for fitness-related activity.
    • Respondents reported that goal-setting for walking and exercise was the most useful aspect of DApp.
    • Respondents also showed interest in nutrition tracking. While 80 percent of respondents reported that they track walking or steps, 60 percent reported tracking food and hydration
  • DApp is easy and fast to install and use.
    • A full 70 percent of participants reported that they felt that the app was easy and intuitive to install, and the remaining 30 percent reported that after this initial experience with the app, they would know exactly how to install it again in the future.
    • No one reported difficulty with installation or the need to have others help them install the app. Only one respondent said that they needed someone to show them how to use certain features of the app.
    • With respect to speed, 40 percent of participants found DApp much faster than most other apps they use and participants ran into no difficulties syncing the DApp with their other apps. Participants had between 10 and 260 different apps on their phones. No participants found the app slower than other apps.
  • Beta users generally felt that DApp comprehensively covered their healthcare-related needs currently.
    • When asked about what the DApp is missing, 50 percent responded “nothing,” and when asked what features participants would add, 30 percent said “none.”

Conclusion

From Patientory’s beta testing of its new beta and the subsequent user survey, it is evident that the DApp is meeting a clear and immediate need for the consumer market. Despite only being a beta product, the vast majority of users found the DApp to not only serve as a valuable healthcare solution but also function as an excellent tool for managing fitness and diet. Along with the value of the app, most individuals found the user experience to be very engaging and relevant, which is an indicator for repeated and ongoing use. Lastly, the back-end software of the app performed quite well according to a majority of users, with the speed of the app and ease and time of install getting high marks.

While these results reflect the feedback of a current beta product for Patientory and updates and enhancements will undoubtedly be made, the data shared in this report validates the value and need for Patientory’s DApp today. Nothing illustrates this idea more than a quote from a passionate beta user “I’m all in! I want to see this become a worldwide standard. Given our mobile society, this is key to saving lives.” We couldn’t agree more.

Categories
Blockchain Events Healthcare Providers

Patientory named as top 10 innovative technology company and won the biggest impact award

 

ATLANTA (February 12, 2019) – The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) has announced Patientory as one of the Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia and given biggest impact award.

Initially, TAG recognized Patientory as “Top 40” companies based on the criteria focused on innovation, including:

  1. degree of innovation
  2. scope and financial impact of innovation
  3. likelihood of success
  4. promotion of Georgia’s innovative efforts nationally and internationally

The selected “Top 40” companies were presented at The Summit – that state’s largest technology showcase – Feb. 12 at Cobb Galleria, Atlanta.

The Summit 2019 – Opening keynote was given by Kyle Tothill, The Summit Chair and Chris Lindner, Chair of the TAG Board of Directors. Also, TAG’s Larry K. Williams, President and CEO, was shared the data and insight from the NEW State of the Industry Report!

The Summit brings together and engages more than 1,200 prominent technology, business and thought leaders centered around the most prominent and relevant trends that are sparking, disrupting and driving innovation today through the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) — one of the country’s largest technology associations with 34,000+ members.

 

Among the “Top 40” selected companies, we have been selected as one of the “Top 10” innovative company for showing the highest degree of innovation, the broadest scope and financial impact of their innovations, and the greatest effect of such innovation in promoting Georgia’s technology industry throughout the U.S. and globally.

ABOUT PATIENTORY

Patientory empowers healthcare systems, providers, and consumers with a single, secure application for sharing healthcare data, providing unprecedented insight into each patient’s health and resulting in better, healthier outcomes. Patientory’s applications provide increased insight into an individual’s health management and empowers people to make better decisions, coordinate between care providers, and receive better care overall.

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA (TAG)

TAG is the leading technology industry association in the state, serving more than 30,000 members through regional chapters in Metro Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon/Middle Georgia, and Savannah. TAG’s mission is to educate, promote, influence and unite Georgia’s technology community to foster an innovative and connected marketplace that fuels the innovation economy.

Additionally, the TAG Education Collaborative (TAG-Ed) focuses on helping science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education initiatives thrive. For more information visit the TAG website at www.tagonline.org or TAG’s community website at http://www.hubga.com. To learn about the TAG-Ed

Categories
Blockchain Healthcare Providers Patients

Blockchain: Reimagining the Future of Health Data

It’s time for us to reimagine the future of healthcare information technology. More specifically, it’s time for us to rethink the management of personal health information, i.e. data from electronic health records (EHRs) and wearable devices. Data will continue to drive the technology that is becoming increasingly intertwined in our everyday lives and this remains especially true for healthcare.

From internet-enabled medical devices to fitness trackers, developments in digital health are creating new opportunities for comprehensive patient care and raising new questions about the ethical management of healthcare data. At Patientory, we believe the correct application of blockchain technology will allow us to effectively take advantage of these opportunities and provide answers to some of these questions.

Challenges for Comprehensive Care

Despite the advent of EHRs, medical records still suffer from a lack of interoperability. IT systems are often siloed and unique to the provider, which means a large amount of time and resources are spent simply requesting, sending, and compiling health information. This makes it challenging to create a comprehensive picture of an individual’s health across multiple providers, especially when there are variations in insurance coverage and geographic location over time.

Additionally, we are starting to see an increase in clinicians relying on patient-generated health data in conjunction with clinical data. This type of information includes health histories, symptoms, lifestyle choices, biometrics, etc., and can better inform care decisions because it provides valuable insight into an individual’s overall health and well-being in between medical visits. While patient portals and EHRs allow for a small portion of this data to be compiled, today’s technologies could be leveraged more effectively to improve health outcomes.

Challenges for Healthcare Data Management

In addition to being siloed, legacy healthcare IT systems are often aging and lacking in robust cybersecurity measures. Hospitals are particularly appealing targets for cyberattacks because their daily operations rely heavily on up-to-date information from electronic medical records,  and stolen health information is worth ten times more than a credit card number on the black market. And the more an EHR is fragmented across multiple providers, the higher the patient’s risk of personal data being exposed to people with malicious intent.

Since all of a provider’s EHRs are stored in one place, a successful breach will give a hacker access to all of that information at once. What’s especially troubling about this is that individuals have little control over the storage of their own personal health data and can do little to prevent this. There is an overall lack of patient control when it comes to the access and use of their own medical data, and this reflects broader societal questions about data management. Legislation, including HIPAA, simply has not caught up to the growing role of data in our lives.

Blockchain as a Solution

When applied to EHRs, blockchain can potentially address these issues. A blockchain consists of encrypted blocks of data that are immutable and linked together chronologically in a chain. In a healthcare setting, these blocks of data could be doctor’s appointments, surgical procedures, x-ray images, prescriptions, blood test results, patient-generated health data, etc. Copies of the blockchain would be distributed across a specified network of users and any additions to the chain would be updated for all users in real-time. Individuals would be in charge of sharing the decryption key for their own associated blocks of data with their chosen healthcare provider(s).

With a distributed application like Patientory’s, individuals would have access to a comprehensive picture of their health that includes compiled data from EHRs and wearable devices. Breaking the silos of traditional medical record storage would not only make the process of sharing EHRs significantly easier, but also result in more robust security. By integrating with PTOYNet distributed and decentralized blockchain network our application is able to adhere to both HIPAA and robust security standards.

Categories
Healthcare Providers Patients

The True Potential of Patient-Generated Health Data

There is no doubt that aggregated health data will continue to shape the future of healthcare. There are vast amounts of data available in today’s society, and health researchers are tapping into it to advance medical science. Large sets of data are regularly compiled and analyzed, and the findings are used to predict epidemics, cure diseases, provide better preventative care, and lower healthcare costs, among other positive things. The widespread adoption of electronic health records and the increasing prevalence of internet-enabled medical devices are creating even more opportunities for valuable data collection. While this unlocks very exciting possibilities for healthcare scientists and providers, where does the patient fit into all of this?

Patient-generated health data (PGHD) is defined by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology as “health-related data created, recorded, or gathered by or from patients (or family members or other caregivers) to help address a health concern.” This includes health and treatment histories, symptoms, lifestyle choices, biometric data, etc. When used in conjunction with existing clinical data, PGHD can provide additional insight into an individual’s overall health and better inform decisions made by care providers. The use and sharing of PGHD can gather important information about an individual’s well-being between medical visits, allow for shared decision-making in preventive and chronic care management, and ultimately improve the cost, quality, and coordination of care.

Trust between patients and providers is a cornerstone of the medical profession and higher levels of trust result in improved health outcomes. In the Digital Health Technology Vision 2018, Accenture found that ninety-four percent of health executives believe that treating customers as partners is important or very important for gaining consumer trust. By its very nature, PGHD creates a valuable opportunity for an individual to become a true partner in their own care. Through the process of supplying data the provider would not have access to otherwise, the patient is given a voice and empowered to actively engage in their health. The power of this voice is further supported by today’s wellness apps, wearables, and fitness trackers, which are increasing consumer engagement with personal health data. However, as with any opportunity, there are potential challenges that need to be addressed.

First of all, electronic health records (EHRs) suffer from a lack of interoperability. The major benefit of PGHD is it can supplement the information found in EHRs to provide a more comprehensive picture of an individual’s health. This benefit cannot be fully realized if patient data is fragmented and siloed across multiple providers and IT systems. Another concern is data privacy and security. We are faced with the reality of hackers and data breaches almost daily, and consumers will be less willing to provide PGHD if they believe their personal information is at risk. Patientory’s distributed application uses blockchain technology to address these concerns and empowers individuals to compile and manage their own health information from multiple providers and wearable devices. They can then securely share their comprehensive health picture with the healthcare provider(s) of their choice, which allows all stakeholders to benefit from the use of PGHD. Learn more about our solution here.

Categories
Blockchain Healthcare Providers Patients Public Health

Restoring Trust in Public Health with Blockchain Technology

Trust is essential to building and maintaining strong, healthy relationships, and the relationship between a patient and their healthcare provider is no exception. Patients with trust in their doctors are more likely to follow treatment plans and medical advice on lifestyle and family planning issues, reducing their lifetime cost of care and increasing their quality of life. A 1999 study found that sixty-two percent of patients with high levels of trust always take their prescribed medication and follow their doctor’s recommendations, but only fourteen percent of patients with low levels of trust do. As another example, for patients with H.I.V., trust in medical providers is associated with more clinic visits, fewer emergency room visits, increased use of antiretroviral drugs, and improved reported physical and mental health.

Mistrust, unfortunately, has been an increasing trend in healthcare. In 1966, almost three-fourths of Americans said they had great confidence in the leaders of the medical profession; by 2012 only one-third expressed this view. Combined with the overall decline in Americans’ trust in institutions the last few decades, the potential threats to public health become apparent. A lack of trust can lead to individual patients refusing vaccinations or forgoing the flu shot, which can have potentially deadly consequences for the greater population. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, only thirty-one percent of the American public said they trusted public health officials to share complete and accurate information about the Ebola virus and a mere fourteen percent said they trusted the government to do the right thing. If these patterns of mistrust continue, future responses to public health emergencies could be drastically impaired.

So what can be done to rebuild trust in our healthcare systems? A recent report by Accenture reveals two clear steps that healthcare institutions can take: over ninety percent of health executives believe that treating customers as partners and ensuring the security of consumer data are both important or very important for gaining consumer trust. Consumer-centricity and data security are also two of the key benefits of blockchain technology, particularly when applied to electronic health records (EHRs). Traditional EHRs suffer from a lack of interoperability and cybersecurity due to varying practice standards and legacy IT systems. This makes sharing comprehensive health data securely across healthcare providers and institutions especially challenging and leaves consumers with little control over their own data.

Patientory is currently using the PTOYNet blockchain administered by the Patientory Association to shift this paradigm and empower patients to take control of their medical records. Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, democratizes trust by removing the ‘middleman’ in transactions and allowing information to be recorded and shared by a community. Rather than relying on a central trust authority, blockchain relies on cryptography and a peer network for verification. All of the participants have a copy of the ledger updated in real time, providing a comprehensive, immutable record of information. Patientory’s blockchain-based distributed application allows patients to decide exactly who can access their health data and for what purpose. We believe improving consumer access to health data information is the first step to increasing trust in healthcare institutions.