Blockchain is often pitched as a key part of the future of healthcare and there are no shortage of companies looking to bring the technology to the masses today.
Silicon Valley startup Open Health Network, which develops AI-based applications for healthcare organizations like UCSF, Sanofi and Cornell University has launched a new product meant to use blockchain technology to allow patients to manage and monetize their medical data.
Dubbed PatientSphere, the company’s platform ingests patient data from sources like EHR records, mobile health applications, wearable devices and programs like Apple HealthKit into one dashboard.
Using machine learning, Open Health Network claims to be able to map out adaptable treatment plans and also allow for HIPAA-compliant sharing of information with researchers, pharmaceutical companies and health plans.
Organizations looking for patient data will be able to search through the database of collected patient data and enable the sharing of the information through blockchain-enabled smart contracts which will reward the patients financially for their participation.
Open Health Networks is pitching its platform as adaptable based on the use case which it claims ranges from increasing medication adherence, targeting behavior change initiatives and identifying the best subjects for clinical trials.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The company is launching its new platform with a data sharing module in the America Heart Association’s My Cardiac Coach application.
Open Health Network was inspired by co-founder and CEO Tatyana Kanzaveli’s own struggle with cancer which highlighted the need to effectively use patient data to create more personalized care and treatment plans.
According to Kanzaveli, the company has 15 customers and is profitable with around $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Eventually the goal with PatientSphere is to create a comprehensive set of nonclinical patient data to improve outcomes for those suffering from chronic disease.
Still there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of blockchain’s applications in healthcare as a whole.
In the past year, the valuation of bitcoin, the most public facing talisman of blockchain technology has gone of a cliff, and financial regulators have ramped up their crackdown on scams and security token sales.
Additionally, Open Health Network is not the only company in the space. Competitors include Doc.Ai – which was founded by the creators of the infamous Scanadu medical device company – and New York-based Nebula Genomics which is looking at giving consumers more control over their genomics data and comes with a genetic test.
Still, Kanzaveli said the Open Health Network’s model – which builds on incorporating the PatientSphere modules with existing customers – provides a different approach to other companies looking to just to sell their blockchain-enabled solution.
“Our goal is to give patients the ability to provide revocable consent with who they want to share their data with,” Kanzaveli said in a phone interview.
“In my philosophical point of view the way to do that is by providing and enabling these tools into products that are already patient facing.”
Photo: a-image, Getty Images
