by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | February 06, 2019
From the January/February 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
HCB News: What are some of the tools for blockchain in healthcare that already exist, and what do they bring to the table?
JH: Companies such as Simply Vital Health, Embleema and Optima Curis, (I advise all of them) have created applications on top of blockchain to address data sharing challenges without adding complexity. Simply Vital Health’s tools are open source, encouraging developers throughout the world to leverage their easy-to-use care coordination tools based on blockchain.
HCB News: Do you feel there are major misconceptions about blockchain and what it could mean for healthcare? If so, what are some of the biggest myths?
JH: Blockchain can be slow, cumbersome, potentially expensive (energy costs), unscalable and limited to small amounts of data. It will not replace existing databases, solve interoperability problems, provide a solution to identity management challenges (i.e., who is the patient), be useful for analytics or replace existing architectures. It’s an adjunct to what we already do, providing some utility for use cases requiring trust.
HCB News: Looking ahead to the next 5 or 10 years, how can you imagine blockchain changing healthcare? Where is the biggest potential?
JH: As mentioned before, the most likely use of blockchain will be for helping solve problems associated with the trustworthiness of data. Since blockchain is not operated by government or a corporation, the trustworthiness of information recorded on the chain transcends politics and policy. I really believe that consent management using distributed public ledger technologies has real potential.
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