Stuart Lackey, co-founder and CEO of the health blocker Solaster in Nashville, Tennessee, discusses the challenges that blockchain technology has faced in 2018 and the growing importance of distributed registry technologies.
The answers have been slightly modified for clarity and length.
Question: where is now the blockchain in the health sector and how will it develop in 2019?
Stuart Lackey: The distributed blockchain and ledger technologies have gone through a challenging 2018, mainly due to the clamor around crypto-asset speculation, regulatory uncertainty over the initial fundraising offer and the awareness that blockchain technology is not a panacea to repair health care. I believe that many observers out there are confusing the performance of crypto-asset markets with the significant progress of technology.
In 2018, we witnessed a withdrawal of public support from some important health care workers after hearing the market pressure to investigate and promote blockchain in 2017. Again, the "blockchain" hype cycle had a lot to do do with this. I often answer questions or comments about the annual decline in global cryptocurrency market capitalization, stating that "blockchain technology is not worse than a year ago or three months ago. It's just getting better." More developers are regularly coming into the and are enthusiastic about health in general.We have some working products and use cases out there.I think it will accelerate in 2019, and it's exciting.
Q: What do you think will be the most significant blockchain applications in the healthcare sector over the next five years?
SL: First I will answer this question by asking "who is meaningful to whom" & # 39; What you are seeing now for the most part in health care are not true blockchain solutions. They are a form of distributed, authorized, read and write databases, DST, which make the existing infrastructure more efficient. All right, but is it significant enough to address the real and significant challenges in the health sector? I'm not so sure. Remember, the goal is to use "health care" less, no more. At present, development areas include: patient data security and custody, care coordination, supply chain management, precision medicine and genomics, clinical research and provenance from drugs and vaccines.
Over time, I think you'll start to see patient-centered health data platforms that are starting to scale using newer technologies such as decentralized file storage. You will begin to see the membership health platforms that bind behavior in real time via reporting and wearable directly to benefits such as lower insurance premiums and health sharing. You will see new and transparent markets for health data, goods and services, which may or may not be rigged. Ultimately, I think you'll start seeing patients become real "patient-clients" by harnessing their health and health data as a very valuable resource.
Q: What do the blockbenches of blockchain hospitals and healthcare systems know today?
SL: I think it's the same message for the existing leadership regardless of what technology is under discussion – blockchain, artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things. The United States is home to the best doctors in the world and we do the best research on health, so this is good news. We have an annual price of $ 3.5 trillion to prove it and some of the worst clinical results in the developed world. Why? Largely because the key incentives are misaligned.
For too long, centralized operators in health care – providers, insurers, etc. – they retained control and took advantage of access and care delivery, while the costs and complexity around these areas increased. This can be seen in the lack of interoperability and portability of the health information of disparate patients, and even within them, health systems. The manner in which health insurance contracts and payments are structured with groups of medical providers and hospital networks is also extremely evident.
Blockchain has the promise, in part, of bringing health care into a new era, as it concerns the transparency and realignment of incentives. Remember, blockchain, to its full potential, is a public database distributed with cryptographic transactions around some form of decentralized control or governance. For this to happen in the health sector, we are talking about creating new processes and decentralized care models that could significantly disrupt the current system. This is potentially a very scary thought for a large group of heavily capitalized traders who profit from the status quo.
To attend the future Becker question and answer session, contact Jackie Drees at [email protected].
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