As our society is facing the 4th Industrial Revolution: The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain Technology are disturbing the world and the traditional markets. The healthcare sector though from a holistic point of view shows very little innovation. On the other hand, major tech players, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, are attempting to capitalize on the consumerization of the healthcare sector.

The appearance of the COVID-19 has shown the weakness of our society and the need for digital transformation almost in every sector, especially in healthcare, has emerged. The war against the invisible enemy will be won on different fronts, one front is the social distancing measures that people have been showing tremendous discipline to follow, so the virus won't be spread at an exponential rate. The other front is at the hospitals which are dependent on the success of the social distancing measures to tackle the fast spread, the flattening of the curve is very crucial during this pandemic and any future pandemic. The more flat is the curve, the more people the healthcare system can accommodate and offer sufficient care and treatment. However, the flattening of the curve can be improved also by the healthcare systems if the right tools are there to identify, take care and follow up cases in the most efficient way. That could happen by the digital transformation of the healthcare system.

With the aim of enabling digital transformation in the healthcare sector, VeChain, together with I-Dante co-developed a blockchain-enabled medical data management platform named The E-NewHealthLife for Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus. Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus  as part of the General Healthcare System of the Republic of Cyprus (GHS) is the first hospital to adopt this application. The hospital has 300 employees, 38 000 outpatient visits in 2019.

Healthcare System Advancement

There have been efforts to modernize the technological infrastructure in the healthcare sector over the past decades, but the process faces several critical hurdles. Problems include the administrative and technical difficulties of pooling data from different digital records systems, the lack of collaboration between different departments and health authorities, the increasing cost of financial expenditure that extrudes the technology investment, and the balance of health imperatives and privacy concerns, which greatly hampered the efforts to transform the healthcare sector. This dilemma has led to an urgent need for a low-cost yet highly-efficient digital solution.

With proven advantages in terms of secured data storage and efficient information sharing between multiple parties, blockchain technology has emerged as the best option in hand.

Blockchainized Actions In Response To The Challenges

There is a strong and urgent demand to deliver better, more efficient and more effective healthcare solutions that can achieve excellent patient-centric healthcare provision, secured data sharing, while complying with increasingly strict regulations on the use and sharing of patient data, which is solved in this case by the introduction of the E-NewHealthLife Web App in the Emergency Department of the hospital as the first phase of this project.

Powered by VeChain ToolChain^TM, the Digital Healthcare Passport is an encrypted NFC Card that can be assigned to any patient of the hospital. The NFC Cards will allow the patients to identify themselves automatically at the Emergency Room registration desk, check their queue on mobile phone, manage their own medical records safely with the E-NewHealthLife Web App, and share their data securely with the hospital.

The E-NewHealthLife Web App

The blockchain powered application can serve both the hospitals internally and also end users. As The E-NewHealthLife fully complies with the GDPR (EU’s General Data Protection Regulation), the App enables the owner to have complete control over their profile and medical records, which upon their agreement, can be used to prove his or her health status. The App will be used by hospital management and staff to collect and record information on patients and this data pack is owned by the patient. Data can only be shared to 3rd parties with the permission of the owner.

Bridging Trust In The Healthcare Sector

Blockchain is being posited as the next frontier in healthcare that will help solve some of the industry's interoperability challenges. Instead of relying on health information exchanges or other ways to aggregate data, the blockchain technology is capable of eliminating the middleman and accessing patient databases on a large, population scale. According to a report by BIS Research, the global healthcare market spending and investment on blockchain-based technologies is expected to hit $5.61 billion by 2025. The adoption of blockchain technology could save the healthcare industry up to $100-$150 billion per year by 2025 in data breach-related costs, IT costs, operations costs, support function costs and personnel costs, and through a reduction in frauds and counterfeit products.

Based on concrete cases of multi party collaboration in various industries, VeChain has been accumulating experience in bridging trust and bringing in transparency into business while being compliant with local authorities and regulators. Given the huge potential of blockchain technology in the medical and healthcare sector, VeChain will continue to develop solutions for all stakeholders and pursue more opportunities in the near future.

About Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus

The Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus is a modern private health care institution, one of the largest in Cyprus, with a mission to provide to all the citizens and the visitors of the country safe and high quality medical services 24/7. The founder of  the Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus, Dr. Andreas Panayiotou has set as a goal the development and the establishment of a reliable infirmary, with flexible operational mechanisms, in order to gain the trust and recognition for the quality of its services from everybody. Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus is the first private hospital that joined Cyprus’ General HealthCare System (GHS).

Website: www.medihospital.com.cy/en/

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About I-DANTE LTD

Founded in December of 2019 by Etna Digital Growth (a consultancy- software house company in Italy) and CircleServus LTD (a consultancy company in Cyprus) in order to build digital healthcare solutions leveraging the power of the VeChainThor Blockchain.

Website: www.i-dante.com/

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About VeChain

Launched in 2015, VeChain connects blockchain technology to the real world by providing a comprehensive governance structure, a robust economic model, and IoT integration. VeChain is the pioneer of real-world applications using public blockchain technology, with international operations in Singapore, Luxembourg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. Together with our strategic partners PwC and DNV GL, we have established cooperative relations with many leading enterprises in different industries, including Walmart China, BMW, BYD Auto, Haier, H&M, LVMH, D.I.G, ENN, AWS, PICC, ASI etc.

Website: www.vechain.com

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