Embleema Gives Patients Control Over Their Health Records
As advances in innovation take shape in Ireland, the life science and healthcare sectors have not been left behind. Due to the efforts of Embleema, a beta release of what has been termed as a patient-driven, HIPAA-compliant, personal health record blockchain has been launched. The blockchain network is based on Ethereum, the leading smart-contract platform. This comes after a year of research and development and shows that innovation pays off.
With the introduction of the blockchain technology, Embleema aims at solving the challenges that are related to the collection and safe sharing of information. As such, the company believes that the new technology will bring precision and transparency to the healthcare sector. This is through allowing patients to own, consolidate and directly share health information with concerned stakeholders such as medical professionals. The healthcare sector worldwide has long been marred by challenges, especially with regards to patients’ data. However, new technologies, such as Embleema’s blockchain, seek to turn this around through the elimination of third parties in data sharing.
Dr. John D. Halamka, who is the International Healthcare Innovation Professor at Harvard Medical School and Embleema advisory board member, states that blockchain infrastructure is able to provide three major benefits. These are a ledger with the location of patient’s records, smart contracts to determine who can handle the information and security keys, which ensure that only authorised parties have access to the patient’s information. This gives patients control over how their health data is used.
