COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the importance of authoritative data and authenticated data sources in the medical field. From the early days of reporting on cases and hospitalizations around the world, individual test results reported by test providers in and outside the regular labs, to vaccine supply chains and vaccination records as shots-in-arms ramp up the health authorities, researchers, pharma industry, and regulators depend on accurate, real-time, trusted data from a vast number of diverse government and commercial organizations. And in some cases, distrust of government authorities makes it vital that the data is stored in a tamper-evident manner so that its integrity can be audited and proven.
Scientists around the world depend on data sources from a variety of national and international health authorities. But can they always trust the authenticity and integrity of the data they download and reference in their results? One of the early projects launched in the spring of 2020 to tackle these concerns was MiPasa.com – focusing on verified provenance and tracking of online datasets related to the spread of COVID-19 – datasets coming from the World Health Organization (WHO), national health authorities, hospital systems, etc. Ensuring that the datasets originated from the organizations they claimed to be from and to protect the data from tampering by anchoring the files on a blockchain (storing the dataset hash, digital signature of the originator, and related metadata for retrieval and verification) was the focus of the MiPasa.com data aggregation and analytics platform created by HACERA.
Tamper-proof Test Results Submission
and Analysis
By the
summer of 2020 we’ve started seeing ramped up COVID-19 testing, but getting the
accurate and complete data from various testing labs on a timely basis needed
for health surveillance and pandemic mitigation efforts was a challenge. Test
data reporting by various labs, agencies, and test manufacturers, who enable
results collection, sometimes relied on ad-hoc processes and fragile tools –
subject to omissions caused by human and network errors, risks to data
integrity, and potential for inaccuracies and fraud, inconsistent treatment of
PII, etc. As FDA started approving at-home test kits and testing moved beyond
the controlled environment of medical labs to workplaces, colleges, and
universities, airports, sports venues, etc.
Verifiable Health Credentials
Capturing
testing results and vaccination progress for government pandemic surveillance
is just part of the need. Individuals need to be able to show their own
negative testing results or that they’ve been vaccinated for air travel (at
least internationally), have access to work sites, and potentially other
gatherings (e.g., sports games, concerts, etc.) after lock-downs ease. However,
as with other faked vaccination records seen around the world (e.g., fake
yellow fever travel cards in Zimbabwe), the paper cards being issued today can
be easily forged and even digital records linked to QR codes are not entirely
safe, while so-called digital immunity passports, which are verifiable, can be
controversial.
While these
examples are gaining visibility in the COVID-19 fight, once the use of
blockchain has been pioneered in these different use cases in 2020 and extended
in 2021, its benefits will become evident in transforming disease testing and
public health surveillance, electronic records sharing, and drugs traceability
in healthcare overall, and we will most likely see the COVID-19 specific
solutions evolve to broader use in 2021 and the next few years.
Have More Questions!!
Email at: - sales@blockchaindevelopments.io
Connect with expert team: - https://bit.ly/2B32Az7
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