Blockchain-enabled telemedicine service to be piloted with London patients
A new telemedicine platform utilising blockchain technology will be trialled with patients in south-west London next month.
MyClinic, which allows users to attend video consultations with a GP and pay for them using cryptocurrency, will be piloted with patients registered at New Malden-based Groves Medical Centre from July, before launching to the general public later in 2018.
MyClinic is the first application to be launched by Medicalchain, which specialises in applying blockchain to electronic health records so that access can be securely tracked.
The new service connects patients with their doctor through a video consultation platform. Through this, clinicians are able to access the patient’s electronic health record stored via Medicalchain’s Health Passport system.
Health Passport stores a digital version of patients’ health records and provides access via mobile device or computer. The system incorporates blockchain technology so that all access requests are recorded accurately on a distributed ledger.
Dr. Abdullah Albeyatti, co-founder and CEO of Medicalchain, said: “We are excited to share the first application, powered by Medicalchain. MyClinic.com will be piloted with patients registered at The Groves Medical Practice and The Groves’ General Practitioners, from July 2018, and will be launched to the general public later this year.”
When using MyClinic, patients will be able to select which clinician they wish to consult with and pay for consultations using ‘MedTokens’, a form of cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin.
Mo Tayeb, co-founder and COO, Medicalchain, added: “We are working together with patients, health professionals and technology specialists to ensure that MyClinic.com will seamlessly integrate into current healthcare services, and provide patients with a better experience of healthcare.”
4 Comments
The data integrity issue aside, the venture is a trade off privacy and further how do you intend to handle the critical audit trails of processes in the entire centralised database which I think is goona be very expensive.
there is not trade off privacy, unlike with our current system. Im sure you are aware that your data (health or others) are sold to marketing company everyday, creating huge amount of spams. Audit trails will be by compliance with local legislation, no need to be expensive. Remember that you will own your data, even if they are store is data center, you are the only one who can grant access to whoever (except for the emergency details). All those data center are compliant with local and international legislation (gdpr and the like).
I need to be convinced with safety of biodata relating the patients diagnosis and right to privacy in the entire chain.
Maybe this is my fault… but this sounds like blockchain-porn. How is this any better than a system that had a robust audit trail, consent/authentication system, and use of other established payment methods (cards and Apple/Google Pay).
I have yet to be convinced that blockchain is really necessary.
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