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US Government contest launched to find blockchain solutions to healthcare problems

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has just posted a notice on the federal register called “[Blockchain and Its Emerging Role in Healthcare and Health-related Research.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-16133.pdf)” The short announcement solicits white papers on the topic of Blockchain Technology and the potential use for Healthcare.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has just posted a notice on the federal register called “Blockchain and Its Emerging Role in Healthcare and Health-related Research.” The short announcement solicits white papers on the topic of Blockchain Technology and the potential use for Healthcare.

Challenge participants have five weeks to submit a white paper that discusses the solution’s link to the “stated objectives in the Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap, PCOR, precision medicine and other national health care delivery priorities.”

The Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap is a 94 page working document, “intended for health IT stakeholders who will build the infrastructure necessary for interoperability and for those who will use that infrastructure.”

Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) is described by the US Department of Health and Human Resources as an important tool in making informed healthcare decisions. “PCOR compares the impact of two or more preventive, diagnostic, treatment, or health care delivery approaches on health outcomes, focusing on those that are meaningful to patients.”

The Precision Medicine Initiative is described by the The White House Office of the Press Secretary as  pioneering a new model of patient-powered research, “that promises to accelerate biomedical discoveries and provide clinicians with new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients.”

At the end of the submission period, August 8, entries will be posted on the challenge website, reviewed, graded, and voted on by a steering committee. With such a broad and diverse range of objectives to tackle, up to eight submissions will be selected as winners.

In addition to a monetary award, up to $5000, winners may also have the opportunity to present their White Papers at an industry-wide "Blockchain & Healthcare Workshop," co- hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and ONC.

ONC is the principal federal entity charged with coordination of nationwide efforts to implement and use the most advanced health information technology and the electronic exchange of health information, and located within the Office of the Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS is the highest federal authority over health and healthcare in the U.S. government. Their mission statement is “to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans,” and their director sits on the president’s cabinet.

“The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is at the forefront of the administration’s health IT efforts and is a resource to the entire health system to support the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange to improve health care.”
— – ONC

Today’s healthcare and health billing records in the U.S. are infamously problematic, sometimes still kept in paper format and at other times making the news for becoming victimized by ransomware.

Scattered between different providers, in a patchwork of doctors and insurance companies, health records in the country are often criticized as either unsafe from attack, inaccessible when needed, or both.

“The paper should discuss the cryptography and underlying fundamentals of blockchain technology, examine how the use of blockchain can advance industry interoperability needs.”
— – ONC

This is far from the first attempt to apply Blockchain to the medial arena. A small startup in Israel, DNA.bits, was the first to announce a system to store medical records, over two years ago, although it appears that they haven’t opened their service to the public and little has been heard from them since.

Genecoin, offers to backup your genomic data to the bitcoin blockchain, so that ‘your blueprints,’ at least, can survive forever.

Guardtime partnered with the Estonian e-Health Authority earlier this year, and has secured over a million health records on a blockchain already. Guardtime is using their own custom blockchain to ensure the integrity of data, with an emphasis on “real-time visibility.”

The most recent announcement of such a project was from Gem and Philips’ Blockchain Lab. Gem used to offer an advanced bitcoin wallet, but changed direction early this year. Their latest initiative, Gem Health, is “a blockchain network for the global community of companies and individuals that take part in the continuum of care,” according to their website.

Rather than have the entire blockchain behave as ‘write-only’ for doctors and healthcare administrators, Gem Health appears to allow customers and other medical professionals to write to users’ chains equally, or perhaps even allow users to hold the private key to their own healthcare records, providing doctors and insurance companies access on demand.

“Blockchain technology addresses the trade-off between personalized care and operational costs by connecting the ecosystem to universal infrastructure. Shared infrastructure allows us to create global standards without compromising privacy and security.”
— – Gem Health


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