Medical-related blockchains trended during the 2017 cryptocurrency boom, as developers mined every utility. The industry even witnessed the rise and fall of DentaCoin, a cryptocurrency exclusive to global dentistry. Yet, many of these use cases proved unviable or unfeasible, and blockchain technology had gravitated away from the medical field. Yet, a few holdouts continued development and established a strong foundation for future success. Among these survivors is MediBloc (MED), a South Korean company focused on medical record keeping.
MediBloc launched at the height of the 2017 boom but saw renewed interest early last year. Their focus on record keeping plays to the strengths of blockchain technology – allowing for secure, immutable, and decentralized storage. Given the absolute disaster of social media data harvesting, securing medical records is at the forefront of many ongoing discussions. MediBloc’s focus on developing their infrastructure allowed them to emerge unscathed from the crypto-winter and make a renewed push.
Personal Medical Data Security
Beyond the simple desire for secure record-keeping, medical data also falls under a variety of laws across the globe. Many countries require strict confidentiality in addition to security, necessitating an ironclad system – often to such a degree that it stymies technology’s involvement altogether. More than any other data type, medical records often rely on analog mediums.
Blockchain in general, and MediBloc in particular, allows for the secure transfer of medical records – either in full or partial. In addition to the benefits of a digital platform, it also opens the door to voluntary disclosures. Users that allow for portions of their data to be used in medical studies would be rewarded in MED, the native cryptocurrency of MediBloc.
Furthering Pandemic Tracking
The COVID pandemic created new demands on medical record-keeping, with contact tracing a hot button issue. Personal confidentiality mixed with the open availability of certain information can allow data scientists to determine pandemic threats as they occur – without exposing individual health concerns. This is the core concept of SHINE, an app created by a conglomerate of companies that include MediBloc and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Quick, secure access to a variety of medical information may be key in preventing a post-COVID pandemic from gaining a foothold. To this end, a digitized medical database is a key to disseminating information to global institutions, and MediBloc’s blockchain solution may prove one of the most secure ways of solving the problem.
