Category: Public Health

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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

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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

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DApps Partners Patients Public Health

Patientory Partnership with Trialscope

We’re super excited to announce that Patientory is now partnered with Trialscope, a company that transforms trials through transparency.

TrialScope unlocks clinical trials access to patients for Pharmaceutical Companies. TrialScope is the most widely adopted clinical trials transparency platform, supported by leading subject-matter experts, TrialScope offers technologies and partnership unprecedented in the industry.

The Patientory partnership with Trialscope will bring the best solutions and patient populations together to accelerate the clinical trial process. Patientory users will receive first-hand access to cutting edge clinical trials. 

About Trialscope:

TrialScope unlocks clinical trial data superpowers. The TrialScope Transparency CloudTM 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.

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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
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Coronavirus Covid-19 Public Health

All About Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Introduction

Coronaviruses are human and animal pathogens. At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city in the Hubei Province of China. It rapidly spread, resulting in an epidemic throughout China, followed by an increasing number of cases in other countries throughout the world. In February 2020, the World Health Organization designated the disease COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease in 2019. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); previously, it was referred to as 2019-nCoV.

Transmission

Understanding of the transmission risk is incomplete. Epidemiologic investigation in Wuhan at the beginning of the outbreak identified an initial association with a seafood market that sold live animals, where most patients had worked or visited and which was subsequently closed for disinfection. However, as the outbreak progressed, person-to-person spread became the main mode of transmission.

Incubation period

The incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to be within 14 days following exposure, with most cases occurring approximately four to five days after exposure.

In a study of 1099 patients with confirmed symptomatic COVID-19, the median incubation period was four days (interquartile range two to seven days).

Steps to Prevention

  • Wash your hands frequently – Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
  • Maintain Social Distancing – Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.
  • Avoid Touching Eyes, Nose and Mouth – Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth.
  • Seek Medical Care Early – If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical care early. Stay home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention and call in advance.

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.

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Blockchain DApps Interns Patients Public Health

Patientory Summer Interns 2019

National Intern Day, which is the third Thursday in July, was started in 2017 and was created to recognize interns for all of the hard work that they do. In celebration of this day, this year, we’ve had the pleasure of having seven students from Georgia State University’s Clinical Informatics Department working with us as part of the Patientory internship program.

Internship Program

Our summer internship program this year ran for 6 weeks. Seven students were chosen to join us at the Atlanta Tech Village the 4th largest startup co-worker hub in the United States. 

Partnership with Georgia State University

Our new partnership with Georgia State University Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing provides their students with clinical informatics experience to aid in preparing a workforce for advancing the future of healthcare delivery.

Health Informatics Graduates

Health informatics as an industry is still in its infancy. Healthcare providers were slow to adopt clinical information systems at the point of care. Only now, because federal requirements accelerated the implementation of electronic health records, is the industry starting to evolve. Now that all this health information is in electronic form, the ability to analyze this immense volume of data has created new opportunities to improve care. That’s why the federal government is predicting such huge growth in this area over the next decade. In fact, the major issue that the industry is now facing is the lack of individuals with training and experience to fill the many open positions. 

There were seven interns along with their supervisors and other leaders in attendance. They are studying the field of health informatics, the design, and implementation of IT-related in health care at Georgia State University, the public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. 

  1. Thuy DoTran
  2. Yemuda Killen
  3. Tram Bui
  4. Xueling Wang
  5. Quynh Nguyen
  6. Salman Simjee
  7. Olivia Collins

Part of the internship program consisted of the interns giving short presentations about what they learned throughout the course of their internship, and how they will use their new skills in their future careers.

One of these interns, Salman Simjee, described our company culture as, “[The] team is very open and supportive. They were always present to listen to our questions and provided us with insights about the industry.”

“The company culture is nice and respectable as well as the people who work at the Atlanta Tech Village.“ Quynh Nguyen. 

New Horizons

Interns learned more about how clinical informatics can improve the overall patient experience such as,

  1. Technology APIs electronic medical records integrations (HL7/FHIR, etc)
  2. KPIs (based on electronic data)/CHF disease states examples
  3. Nursing informatics and Smart FHIR training recommendations
  4. What is being offered by other patient centric healthcare IT as Analytics
  5. Analytic visualizations for both mobile and enterprise

And a lot more!

Final Day

Most of the interns already knew what they wanted to pursue coming into the internship. Tram Bui says she pursued Clinical Informatics at Georgia State University to become a healthcare data analyst and the patientory internship program helped her to kick start her dreams.

On the final day of the program, all our interns shared feedback about how their internship helped them figure out what career path they want to take.

We expect that number to continue to increase, by next summer, 2020.

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Public Health

Lessons in Health Data Management from the General Data Protection Regulation

This year, in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. The GDPR is groundbreaking legislation for consumer rights when it comes to data protection. We all create data everywhere we go with our internet-enabled devices, but the use of that data is still largely unregulated. The GDPR was enacted to ensure that organizations comply with the following actions:

  • Fully inform consumers about the type of data being collected
  • Obtain explicit consent from consumers to gather their data
  • Allow consumers to access their data and request corrections
  • Give consumers the option to withdraw their consent at any time

When it comes to gathering and using health data specifically, Patientory believes these actions are vital to maintaining trust between patients and providers. Today’s electronic medical records struggle with issues of interoperability and cybersecurity, and we need to reimagine the future of health information management. This is why we developed our distributed application: to empower individual consumers to easily manage and control access to their own health data. Join us.

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Blockchain Public Health

Blockchain and Public Health: Estonia’s Experience

Did you know that the country of Estonia uses blockchain technology to ensure healthcare data security and electronic medical record integrity? Ninety-nine percent of patients have a countrywide digital record that integrates data from Estonia’s different healthcare providers to create a comprehensive record each patient can access online. One of the country’s technology partners, Nortal, writes more about Estonia’s use of blockchain here.

By providing individual citizens with a fully transparent and accurate view of their medical data, Estonia is empowering patients to take control of their health. While the scale and complexity of the United States’ healthcare system makes this more challenging to accomplish, Patientory believes patient-centered blockchain technology can lead the way in facilitating more effective health data practices.

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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.

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Blockchain Public Health

Blockchain and Public Health Belong Together

In instances of disease outbreaks or epidemics, it is vital that public health organizations have the ability to share crucial information quickly. Details regarding treatments, travels, medical records, and vaccines need to be shared as soon as possible across institutions and geographic locations to inform an effective response. For example, if a foreign traveler contracts hepatitis A or a dangerous virus spreads throughout a community by contaminated food or water, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to know about it so they can take appropriate action. To predict future epidemics, develop effective health policies, and ultimately control the spread of infectious diseases, the CDC, state and local health departments, and other organizations need to routinely share public health data. Although this seems like a simple task in the digital age, the reality is much more complicated.

Current systems of health data management are subject to different state laws and local practice standards, as well as concerns about privacy, security, and HIPAA compliance. While public health organizations share the same overall mission, they are unable to freely send and receive data amongst each other. There are a variety of data usage agreements in use and governmental policies dictate strict rules regarding health information access. The process of ensuring the correct data is sent or received by the right person for the right purpose is slow and inefficient. The lack of interoperability across health organizations and state borders results in inherent deficiencies in the management of public health. For example, the 2014 US Ebola outbreak was started by several infected individuals who were allowed back into the US when the government did not receive critical information about their health in time.   

Blockchain technology has been recognized by Patientory and others in the healthcare industry as a viable solution to address the privacy, security, and interoperability issues facing public health. The governance rules of a blockchain allow only predefined, authorized users to access requested information. This would ensure the privacy of sensitive health data and empower public health stakeholders to define and control permissions. Since blockchain is a distributed ledger, transactions are verified, encrypted, and maintained by a network of computers that collectively share the virtually incorruptible information. This peer-to-peer model of data sharing reflects what healthcare organizations need to successfully address public health crises. We here at Patientory wholeheartedly believe that blockchain and public health belong together.