The U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announces winners of the Blockchain Health Information Technology Challenge

Rage Comment : The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) recently announced the winning copywriting list of the Blockchain Medical Information Technology Challenge, striving for the best solution and seeking to achieve a better national medical service vision with blockchain-based medical and health information technology. The agency announced a list of 15 winning copywriting on the HealthIT.gov official website and will continue to announce the participating copywriting on September 26 this year. I believe that such a detailed and large blockchain implementation plan can provide vivid information to colleagues who are concerned about the blockchain industry. At the same time, this event also proves that blockchain technology has great potential for stable implementation.

Translation: Annie_Xu

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) said that the winners of the competition will use new blockchain digital technology applications to securely and efficiently protect and exchange electronic medical and health data.

ONC announced the winners of the Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-related Research Challenge. Often associated with digital currencies, blockchain is a data architecture that can be time-stamped and signed with a private key to prevent data tampering.

After the challenge began, ONC received more than 70 proposals from numerous institutions, companies and individuals, describing how to integrate blockchain technology into health and health information technology to protect, manage and exchange health electronic data.

Vindell Washington

Vindell Washington, MD, ONC’s newest coordinator, said:

“While many people know blockchain technology for its applications in digital currencies, the submissions to this challenge demonstrate the potential for this technology to find new and innovative applications in the healthcare sector, which is exciting.”

ONC's selection criteria were based on several factors, including market potential of the proposed or recommended solution, creativity, ability to anticipate and promote transformational change, and potential to achieve the broad national health information strategic goals, including improving the delivery of health information to meet a wide range of needs, anytime, anywhere.

ONC listed the final list of winning documents published on the HealthIT.gov website:

1. Blockchain and Health IT: Algorithms, Privacy, and Data. A peer-to-peer network that allows all parties to jointly store and analyze data while ensuring the privacy of information, bringing accurate clinical medical diagnosis and research.

2. Blockchain: Securing a New Health Interoperability Experience. Blockchain technology can support many existing medical and health business processes, improve data integrity and authenticity, and achieve interoperability of large-scale information exchange, copyright tracking, identity determination and verification.

3. Blockchain Technologies: A Whitepaper Discussing how Claims Process can be Improved. Integrating smart contracts, blockchain and other technologies into the same platform can greatly improve the claims process and the healthcare experience for all stakeholders.

4. Blockchain: Opportunities for Health Care. Provide an implementation framework and business case for applying blockchain to health information exchange to achieve national health care strategic goals.

5. A Case Study for Blockchain in Healthcare: MedRec Prototype for Electronic Health Records and Medical Research Data. A decentralized record management system for managing electronic health data, leveraging the verifiability, privacy, reliability, and data sharing of blockchain technology.

6. The Use of a Blockchain to Foster the Development of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures. Combining the Internet of Things and blockchain technology for patient self-reported diagnostic measures (PROMs, Patient Reported Outcome Measures) in the United States.

7. Powering the Physician Patient Relationship with 'HIE of One' Blockchain Health IT. The "HIE of One" system (HIE, Health Information Exchange) matches the health information stored by the patient with the blockchain identity, and the blockchain identity with the verification certificate authority, reducing transaction costs for all participants and improving security.

8. Blockchain: The Chain of Trust and its Potential to Transform Healthcare – Our Point of View. The potential of blockchain technology in the healthcare sector, with a detailed study of the healthcare pre-authorization payment system infrastructure, the detection and prevention of counterfeit and substandard drugs, and a summary of clinical trial use cases.

9. Moving Toward a Blockchain-based Method for the Secure Storage of Patient Records. Use blockchain as a new way to securely store health data and overcome implementation barriers. Develop an implementation plan to gradually and steadily transition from existing technologies to blockchain solutions.

10. ModelChain: Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Health Care Predictive Modeling Framework on Private Blockchain Networks. ModelChain is a framework that adjusts blockchain technology to achieve privacy-respecting health care predictive modeling and increase inter-institutional operability.

11. Blockchain for Health Data and Its Potential Use in Health IT and Health Care Related Research. Research blockchain-based health data access control to address the industry interoperability challenges described in ONC's Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap.

12. A Blockchain-Based Approach to Health Information Exchange Networks. A blockchain-based patient data sharing model that trades a single centralized data source with the goal of reaching network consensus, predicting the possibility of reaching consensus on proofs of interoperability at the structural and semantic levels.

13. Adoption of Blockchain to enable the Scalability and Adoption of Accountable Care. A new digital healthcare service delivery model that uses blockchain technology as the basis for peer-to-peer authorization and verification.

14. A Blockchain Profile for Medicaid Applicants and Recipients. This paper addresses long-standing issues in the U.S. Medicaid system and describes how health information technology and health research projects can use blockchain-based innovations and emerging artificial intelligence systems to develop new models for delivering health care services.

15. Blockchain & Alternate Payment Models. Blockchain technology has the potential to enable institutions that adopt alternative payment models to develop IT platforms, helping to achieve quality and value parity.

The remaining submissions will be posted on HealthIT.gov during the opening day of the National Health IT Week conference on September 26, 2016, which will be held in conjunction with the ONC and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Use of Blockchain for Healthcare and Research symposium.