Popular healthcare blockchain initiatives with Bento Bio, AlixPartners and more

Year in and year out, people continue to wonder how long the crypto hype will continue. The volatility of the market and the crashes it has suffered lead some to believe that the time of the digital currency has come to an end, but without fail it always reappears. But why?

This month at Fintech Times we will look at what makes digital currencies, especially cryptocurrencies, so popular, while uncovering the new alternatives to crypto and why the digital future looks so exciting.

We’re kicking off the month by looking at some of the most popular blockchain initiatives in various sectors, with healthcare our next focus.

We hear from David Shuler, Dr Kelly Marie McVearry, Kevin Madura and Richard Baker about the most popular blockchain initiatives currently taking place in the healthcare sector.

When blockchain meets data

Shuler opens the conversation discussing the use of blockchain in authenticating data while allowing it to be shared more efficiently.

Shuler is the founder of Life Group Holdings, Inc.a platform that makes large volumes of hotel bookings available for trading on secondary markets by being digitized and converted into tradable, collectable non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Shuler starts by affirming the importance of blockchain applications in healthcare, which represents about 20 percent of US GDP.

He describes the benefits as “enabling data to be shared effectively between patients and their medical service providers”, but says that while maintaining patient privacy is crucial, the process is “very expensive using traditional systems”.

As for how blockchain is used to seal the authenticity of this data, Shuler explains how “blockchain uses timestamping to authenticate changes to a data set, even if more than one user has permission to edit a document,” which he says “does ideal for managing electronic health records (EHR).”

Shuler points to companies BurstIQ and IRYO as examples of this technology in motion. Both are developing blockchain-based systems to “efficiently update medical records with data from multiple sources, potentially saving billions,” he concludes.

Blockchain and biomedical inclusion

Next, McVearry discusses how the latest blockchain initiatives in the healthcare sector are cultivating benefits for consumer trust industry representation.

McVearry is the co-founder and CEO of Bento Bioa platform for patient empowerment seeking to address the diversity issue in clinical trials and human genomics research.

The company connects modern biosampling tools with blockchain technology and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) tokenomics.

“The much-anticipated era of personalized molecular medicine, cell therapy and genome-guided precision medicine is beginning to arrive, but not for everyone,” says McVearry.

Quoting the words of Dr Janet Woodcock of FDA“There is an urgent unmet need to diversify enrollment in clinical trials so that new medicines and new treatments meet the needs of all citizens.”

According to McVearry, minority groups and rural populations continue to be grossly underrepresented in clinical and genomic studies.

“Once these diversity issues are resolved, we can turn science into medicine faster and close the gap in health disparities,” she says.

So what is the missing link?

McVearry confirms that instead of the obvious culprits, like the state of science or laboratory technology, “it’s trust.”

The company addresses this issue with Web3 patient empowerment tools developed with trustless blockchain infrastructure, which enable patients to participate in the clinical research enterprise as data owners, not just data donors.

She discusses this, explaining how “every patient is a platform, with tools to build, control, create, share and even monetize their biological digital twin.”

“The Bento Biology Platform uses smart contract protocols and a tokenization model to implement economic principles of shared value through our DAO,” McVearry further explains.

“Early adopters see Bento as a means to participate in the biotechnology economy as true partners in the pursuit of cures and precision medicine.”

During the platform’s recent national pilot test, the data reports that 100 percent of minority participants felt that the bento box experience and mobile tools made them “more likely” to participate in clinical trials.

“This blockchain-powered technology is now being piloted in other use cases, including remote communities in Alaska, patient populations with rare diseases, and patient populations with complex autoimmune conditions,” concludes McVearry.

Securing the healthcare system

According to Madura, healthcare continues to experiment with the capabilities of blockchain technology apace, with startups in particular exploring its viability to improve the highly regulated and complex industry.

Madura is senior vice president of digital wood AlixPartnersa US-based financial advisory and consulting firm.

Although the ability to place patient data “on-chain” is limited due to the public nature of many blockchains, he explains how “there could be applications to securely prove certain relationships or patient histories.”

Madura points to companies Avaneer Healthwhich drives towards improving claims management, and Chronicledwhich builds a new mechanism to establish a chain of custody for prescriptions, as examples of this.

“Many questions remain about the regulatory and data challenges of using blockchain technology for health purposes,” he continues, “but using this new technology could open up opportunities for a more portable, secure and improved health system.”

Medical understanding

Rounding out our conversation, Baker here outlines the most interesting points raised by his peers, emphasizing the security and practicalities of blockchain in healthcare.

Baker is the CEO of LANGUAGEa vertically integrated blockchain infrastructure and service provider for businesses.

Baker points to the “immutability of entries on the blockchain” and its “track-and-traceability” as key examples of blockchain initiatives in healthcare.

He explains that these two characteristics enable patients and doctors to have “a thorough understanding of medicines, including vaccine ingredients while staying safe”.

“Additionally, users can control their data through encrypted private keys that give them the authority to disclose personal information to whomever they choose,” he continues.

“The potential here when mass adoption happens is truly revolutionary.”