Taiwan Hospital Launches Blockchain Platform to Improve Medical Record-Keeping

The Taipei Medical University Hospital has rolled out a blockchain-powered platform to improve medical record-keeping, Taipei Times reported August 31.

The so called “Healthcare Blockchain Platform” was reportedly developed in order to support the government’s Hierarchical Medical System policy, improve patient referral services, and integrate individual healthcare networks to enable people to access their medical records in an easier way. To make a request for their records, patients can log in to a password-protected mobile app.

The project involved over 100 clinics, which deploy blockchain technology to address major issues in healthcare, such as data transfer between medical establishments and patient portals. Through the platform, patients can access “a complete set of all their medical records, including high-resolution medical images, lab results, and clinical and health exam information,” while hospitals and clinics can request, authorize and share patients’ records using smart contracts.

Hospital superintendent Chen Ray-jade told Tapei Times that blockchain will help to minimize the risk of security breaches, adding that “blockchain technology not only helps to combine electronic medical records with electronic health records from multiple hospitals and clinics, it also incorporates the additional security feature of notification and consent before any transfer takes place.”

Healthcare establishments globally have also applied distributed ledger technology in medical data management. Earlier this month, Cointelegraph reported that South Korean biotech enterprise Macrogen together with local tech firm Bigster is developing a medical big data ecosystem that would allow for secure and private storage and transfer of large amounts of sensitive genomic and personal information.

In May, U.S.-based life science research marketplace Scientist.com revealed a new blockchain platform  designed to track and protect pharmaceutical data. Additionally, Scientist.com is attempting to reduce the burden on biopharma businesses to comply with strict U.S. data regulations.

In April, German Camelot Consulting Group developed a blockchain-based solution for the management of sensitive medical data, where all data transactions are encrypted and stored on an unchangeable blockchain and are carried out directly between the authorized participants.