Blockchain pushes healthcare digital ID applications forward in India, South Korea
India’s National Health Authority has selected Life Clips’ subsidiary Belfrics to issue approximately one million Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) digital IDs by the end of June 2023 in the form of the Belshare wallet app. The Ayushman Bharat Mission is expected to be the world’s largest healthcare infrastructure.
The move will reportedly establish a solid and reliable digital identity that healthcare professionals and payers across the country will accept.
“Patient record management, patient registration, patient ID and healthcare professional certificate can be stored in the Belshare wallet, which is built on a decentralized network,” explains Belfrics director Vazeem Jadeer.
“Post-Covid, there has been a significant shift towards digital healthcare and we believe the Belshare solution will accelerate digital adoption for the nation.”
Through the new blockchain technology, Belfrics intends to build a solution where health data is stored and coordinated seamlessly through user-approved architecture.
According to Robert Grinberg, CEO of Life Clips, blockchain can also improve the efficiency and time spent transferring patient records from one facility to another, as well as increase the safety of patients by reducing the duplication of clinical interventions.
“ABHA IDs, which will unify the entire Indian healthcare ecosystem, are an excellent initiative by the Indian government to access and share health records digitally with hospitals, clinics and insurance providers across the country,” says Grinberg.
“Belfrics intends to complete M2 and M3 (milestones 2 and 3) in the next three to six months. This is a huge opportunity for our Belfrics subsidiary and a huge vote of confidence for its revolutionary KYC-based Belrium blockchain. ยป
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission was launched in September 2021 and soon proved controversial as the Aadhaar accounts of many were linked to it without their consent when they signed up for covid-19 vaccinations. Within two months, 140 million were registered, of which 96 percent had linked their national biometric ID number from Aadhaar.
This is not the first project to try to bring blockchain and digital ID technologies together in India. Earlier this year, 14 Indian researchers proposed a similar project.
South Korean company launches blockchain-powered digital ID
South Korea-based digital transformation (DX) company and member of Decentralized Identity (DID) Alliance Korea, LG CNS, an IT services subsidiary of LG, launched its DDIDID mobile ID service with blockchain technology.
Spotted by The Korea Times, the new digital ID aims to replace existing plastic ID cards, initially for employees, allowing them to pay for beverages at the company’s coffee shop and enter the company’s cafeteria.
LG CNS’s digital ID reportedly relies on blockchain-based digital distributed identity verification (DID) technology to enable individual employees to decide what data to share via their mobile devices.
“We will expand DDIDID into a blockchain-based digital identity verification program to provide a variety of services that increase people’s convenience while guaranteeing individuals the authority to manage and use their personal data,” an LG CNS official said, as quoted by The Korea Times.
Article topics
blockchain | decentralized ID | digital ID | digital wallet | healthcare | patient identification
