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Blockchain has generated a lot of hype in the federal contracting community in recent years, but the technology has never led many agencies to move forward with the technology.
The distributed ledger technology, however, has seen pockets of implementation in federal health agencies. Now in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Department of Defense health executives are once again looking into potential use cases for blockchain.
Bruce Doll, the assistant vice president of technology research and innovation at the Department of Defense’s Uniformed Services University, said Wednesday that the military health system should consider blockchain for everything from credential providers in clinics to monitoring. the distribution of a COVID vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed.
“You definitely want to be in a situation where you are able to track, whether it’s Pfizer or Moderna, right up to the delivery to the patient, what the quality of that series of steps actually is,” Doll said at a virtual conference Wednesday. on health informatics hosted by Federal Computer Week.
Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Doll said defense health agencies could clean up and evaluate its suitability for use to reduce the risk of incorrect data entering the blockchain.
“Right now, if you use the blockchain, there is a risk that the data introduced is invalid data and, unfortunately, poorly introduced into a blockchain can be incorrect data forever,” he said.
The renewed interest in blockchain comes from a report commissioned by the leadership of Congress to explore the possibility of introducing blockchain into the DoD. Potential applications include multi-factor authentication of people entering data into MHS systems.
“The idea of identifying a friend or foe is central to the environments we work in, and so these identifications can only take seconds before we have to make a decision,” Doll said. “Having blockchain operating in that environment, so you can actually have commands that can be transmitted in the field and then evaluated for correctness … would be a big plus.”
The report also proposed that the DoD consider using blockchain to reduce individual points in the event of a failure on the battlefield or in emergency decision-making situations.
“There is a lot to be done, a number of factors need to be considered, especially things like maintenance, orchestration, provisioning and therefore it can exceed any single individual’s ability to manipulate them all to the advantage of making the best decision.” , He said. “Using the blockchain to establish a record of such decisions is one way to account for how you move from Step A to Step C.”
The commissioned report also recommended that the DoD consider blockchain to improve the efficiency of its logistics and supply chains.
The renewed enthusiasm for blockchain, Doll said, has not yet led the DoD to move forward with any new projects or pilot projects. For this distributed ledger technology to gain momentum, he said the agency must ensure that its workforce has the necessary skills and leadership at the Defense Health Agency or assistant secretary of defense for health affairs to make it a priority.
“You can understand that the whole technology is evolving and I think the stage it is currently in remains one to deliberately evaluate before launching a pilot project within the military health system,” Doll said.
The Department of Health and Human Services has pioneered the use of blockchain in government. HHS in 2018 gained the first authority to operate a blockchain and AI-based tool called HHS Accelerate.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has been examining the use of distributed ledger technology to monitor the global food supply chain and pinpoint the source of food safety problems.
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