Blockchain Projects Battle for Health Records

Vulnerable to massive data hacks, siloed from effective communication, and frustrating to patients and healthcare providers alike, Electronic Health Records are ripe for disruption.

From examples like Equifax to Anthem Blue Cross, centrally-stored data has often proved vulnerable and lucrative in the modern age of cyber attacks and data leaks.

For the most part, all five projects aim to give patients full control and access to their information as one complete record.

Through smart contracts, patients can also choose who to give permission to view and edit their records.

In general, a company's blockchain will only contain the hashed value of a patient's data, which will act as "Breadcrumbs" to locate the patient's encrypted information off-chain.

Having a patient's information spread throughout decentralized nodes will prevent there from being one point-of-failure and protect sensitive data from hacking and forgery.

Although both companies are working towards improving EHRs, Medicalchain is focused on using a patient's health data to provide telemedicine consults, saving the patient time and money.

Medichain's emphasis is on improving research by allowing patients to sell their anonymized data to researchers and companies.

Blockchain technology has the potential to drastically improve the management of healthcare records.

The decentralized nature and immutable ledger of blockchain provide a secure, transparent, and easily accessible record for patients and providers alike.