The eleventh white paper “Medical + Blockchain: Application Reform in Multiple Fields” issued by the Zhejiang Digital Medical and Health Technology Research Institute pointed out that “Medical + Blockchain had application cases in 2014. With the basic technology, the bottom layer With the maturity of the chain, the number of industrialized applications has begun to increase significantly. In 2017, with the outbreak of the blockchain market, the new projects of medical blockchain also reached the peak.”
Looking at the time node in 2020, what new progress is there in the combination of blockchain technology and the medical field? Where is the possible combination of the two parties? With this question in mind, we talked to Digital Button Technology, a joint venture company of the leading blockchain company, Funchain Technology, a company that focuses on the application of blockchain technology in medical circuits.
Foundation: Blockchain technology + medical data + unified standards
The birth of Digital Button Technology is inseparable from two companies, one is Funchain Technology, which is famous for its blockchain technology, and the other is Shulan Medical Management Group, which has been engaged in the medical business for a long time. With the combined efforts of the two, the number button technology was established in March 2019, and the number button technology was born with unique advantages.
Funchain Technology, as the holding company of Number Button Technology, is itself the first quasi-unicorn enterprise in the blockchain industry. As early as 2018, it won a round of 1.5 billion yuan in B round of financing including state investment funds, listed companies and traditional funds. Funchain Technology has a good performance in various blockchain testing and technical standard formulation, which has promoted the landing of a large number of blockchain products. Its service targets include companies such as the People’s Bank of China, State Grid, China Telecom, China Southern Airlines, etc., indirectly serving an audience of up to 150 million, and supporting business scale of up to hundreds of billions of yuan.
Shulan Medical Management Group is a new comprehensive medical group initiated by a team of doctors. Its first hospital, Shulan (Hangzhou) Hospital, is currently a fast-growing socially-run tertiary general hospital in China. It has strong clinical discipline capabilities in the fields of organ transplantation and infection. In addition to focusing on health and medical services, Shulan Group has also made a certain layout in the fields of medical education, clinical research, industrial technology, information technology, investment and incubation, and is expected to become a new force in the field of bioeconomy in the future.
With its unique advantages, Digital Button Technology, while receiving the block chain strategic guidance of Funchain Technology, is acting as the only strategic executive on its medical and health track. Shulan Medical provides clinical practice and strategic guidance in the medical field for Digital Technology, and provides landing scenarios for Digital Technology to explore and connect with the medical industry. The coverage includes: clinical medical and scientific research, health management, infectious disease management, etc. A pilot blockchain scenario for the entire medical and health process.
In the field of medical information sharing, in order to solve the common problem of data sharing in the medical and health field and meet the urgent needs of the industry for data structure and standardization, in May 2015, Zhejiang Digital Medical and Health Technology Research Institute launched the Open Medical and Health Alliance ( Open Medical and Healthcare Alliance, OMAHA). Focus on achieving the standardization of health information technology through industry alliance collaboration, open source and open methods, so as to improve the interoperability between different systems and improve the operating efficiency of the industry. As one of the member units of the special committee of the OMAHA alliance, Nubuck Technology is also actively practicing to a certain extent, using blockchain technology for the exploration of scenarios in the field of health and medical information data sharing.
Qian Yuanzhi, the person in charge of Digital Button technology interviewed by Artery Network, has had many connections with Qulian Technology before. He graduated with a master’s degree in information technology from the University of Manchester, and has long been engaged in data warehouse and business intelligence product development and delivery management. Prior to this, he worked at AXON Software, Netnew Hengtian Software and other companies, and served as Director of Strategic Development Department after joining Qulian Technology. Then, in March 2020, he began to be responsible for the development of Digital Button Technology, a joint venture company engaged in medical and health business under Qulian Technology.
Business: Medical Public Health + Medical Insurance Commercial Insurance + Scientific Research Platform + Chronic Disease Management
Although it has only been a year since its establishment, Digital Button Technology already has a batch of implementation plans. On June 9, 2020, Shuniu Technology reached a strategic cooperation with the New H3C Group, a subsidiary of Unigroup. Shuniu Technology plans to implement blockchain intelligent data gateway products to further protect data from the lowest level of data and resources, and allow blockchain to be more closely integrated with network infrastructure. Digital’s smart gateway product is a combination of software and hardware, which can standardize and protect medical data and realize seamless medical data on the chain.
Qian Yuanzhi said that the business of Number Button Technology can be divided into four major sectors: one is the pharmaceutical and public health sector, such as medical equipment tracking, epidemic prevention and control, and supervision by competent authorities; the second is the medical security sector, which involves medical insurance and commercial insurance; It is the construction of a scientific research platform; the fourth is out-of-hospital rehabilitation, which involves health care and chronic disease management, and the scene extends from inside the hospital to outside the hospital.
1Medical Public Health
In the pharmaceutical sector, common blockchain applications are drug traceability, drug device tracking, etc. In the field of drug traceability, the combination of the Internet of Things solution under Funchain Technology and the medical data gateway solution of Digital Technology can maximize the elimination of errors caused by manual intervention. At the same time, the non-tamperable modification of blockchain data is used to ensure the credibility of traceability. For example, in the medical aesthetics industry, which is mixed with dragons and fishes, it is possible to provide record information that cannot be tampered with by linking the qualifications of practitioners, patient medical history, postoperative results, dispute arbitration and other links, so that the industry can develop more healthily.
In the field of public health, Digital Button Technology provides an epidemic reporting solution based on blockchain technology. After SARS, my country has established an epidemic reporting system, but this epidemic has made us aware of the room for improvement. What Digital Button wants to do is to intelligently report early warnings, report automatically through the blockchain, and use the blockchain to realize data interconnection. Use blockchain data encryption to protect the privacy of doctors’ reporters, related participants, and patients, so as to achieve precise response, intelligent decision-making, and avoid manual intervention. And it can also realize the synchronization report of horizontal data, providing decision-makers with a basis for judgment on the development of the epidemic.
2 medical insurance
In the field of commercial insurance, Number Button believes that it is not competing with insurance institutions, but empowering the industry. Insurance companies in the industry have a user data foundation and can construct user models scientifically. The existence of Digital Button technology is to help ensure the credibility of the underlying data and the security of privacy. In the field of mutual insurance, Digital Button is still sorting out business logic. Qian Yuanzhi said that even if he cuts in, he will choose to access from the traceability of the event and the evidence on the chain without tampering, so as to better realize the supervision of funds.
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3 scientific research platform
In the construction of the scientific research platform, Digital Button is aware of the huge demand for data from scientific research institutions. Blockchain can use trusted shared computing or federated computing to make data available but invisible. In this way, users of scientific research platforms can theoretically use cases across the country. On this basis, it is allowed to realize right management for the whole life cycle of data. Where the data comes from and who made additions and deletions will be accurately recorded and cannot be tampered with. It allows data providers, participants, and users to use data as an industry and as an asset to run the circulation. The income obtained can also be reasonably distributed through precise right management. It is even refined into the scientific research report, accurately dividing the first and second authors, and accurately confirming the contribution of each person and whether the data verification process is reliable.
At present, Digital Button Technology has helped to establish a scientific research platform for the National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, realize data exchange between the scientific research center and member units, and help provide a larger sample of scientific research data; monitor the data use process, and Carry out storage certificates to ensure the contributions of various scientific research units; provide quasi-real-time early warning of infectious diseases based on medical data among members. At present, the scientific research platform will be promoted in three phases. The first phase is deploying four tertiary hospitals, the second phase is planning to deploy 52 tertiary hospitals, and the third phase is planning to deploy more than 300 hospitals.
4 Chronic disease management
The chronic disease management section extends the combination of blockchain and medical scenes from inside the hospital to outside the hospital, including more family scenes, sports scenes, and even eating scenes. Digital Button Technology is currently cooperating with a chronic disease management organization to access daily data management and control of diabetes and hypertension outside the hospital. In addition, it has also reached a cooperation with home IOT providers to collect patient data from home smart devices, which better guarantees the coverage of data collection outside the hospital. Qian Yuanzhi also said that he will soon cooperate with a certain district government to start with a single chronic disease, open up the chain of family doctors, community hospitals, and chronic disease patients recovering at home to achieve more precise chronic disease management.
At present, the main landing plan of Digital Button Technology involves the structure of scientific research platforms and medical complexes in the region, and the circulation of two-way referral prescriptions. In terms of medical security, it is also cooperating with provincial medical security authorities. The hospitals cooperated by Shuniu Technology mainly cover the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, including Jinhua Central Hospital and Shulan Hospital, as well as other hospitals in some provinces. At the same time, it is also cooperating with Chinese medicine to carry out shared pharmacies, prescription circulation, and construction of a Chinese medicine community.
Difficulty: Interoperability of data standards + coordination of informatization construction planning
Why does the hospital share data? Qian Yuanzhi said that from the perspective of the hospital dean, two points need to be paid attention to: one is the construction of the hospital’s discipline strength, which needs to be continuously improved; the second is the overall operation effect of the hospital. At present, with the implementation of medical insurance fee control measures, the medical cost of a single patient is declining. To achieve better revenue growth, it is necessary to greatly improve the efficiency of resource utilization.
To solve scientific research problems, hospitals need to be able to obtain scientific research data in collaboration with other hospitals, have more extensive contact with sample areas, and achieve expansion and collaboration outside the hospital. To increase revenue, it is necessary to rationally utilize resources at hand, respond to graded diagnosis and treatment, and initiate two-way referrals. However, in the past, the mutual trust between hospitals and the mutual trust of electronic health records were relatively low. In order to enhance trust, hospitals often achieve strategic mutual trust through cross-holding, but the cost is very high. After the intervention of blockchain technology, the cost will be effectively controlled, greatly improving the efficiency of resource utilization.
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However, we may have to realize that this is a matter of a certain degree of difficulty. Even if Digital Button Technology can carry out the standard intercommunication of medical data in some medical groups, how to realize the standardization of data among different medical organizations? Qian Yuanzhi pointed out that the construction of the Hospital Information System (HIS) is quite scattered, each hospital has its own HIS system, and even each hospital may adopt different HIS systems during the tenure of different deans, which causes the heterogeneity of data. Different hospitals have different names for the same disease, resulting in heterogeneous semantics. The difference in clinical procedures has also led to various differences. There are great obstacles to achieve data interconnection.
The OMAHA alliance established in 2015 was born under such circumstances. What it tries to promote is the standardization of data, semantics, and clinical procedures. Here, the basic ideas of open source, openness, and sharing are very important and are the underlying logic of data interconnection. In the process of participating in data sharing in the medical industry, Digital Button continues to polish its own data gateway products. Based on OMAHA’s basic data elements, medical terminology and other standards, it performs automated data adaptation and provides necessary data for scientific research platforms. stand by.
The actual landing process may also involve the coordination of informatization construction planning. In the process of blockchain application, some of the problems encountered by Digital Button are that different departments at the same level and the same level have not realized the coordination of informatization construction plans, which has caused many difficulties in the implementation of blockchain technology. To realize the interconnection and intercommunication of informatization construction data, it is necessary to coordinate the overall planning and realize cross-regional and cross-level linkage.
We can also see that the number of button technology landing cases may be more concentrated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. This has something to do with the location of the company, and it has something to do with Zhejiang University. But to a greater extent, it may be related to Zhejiang’s digital construction. Zhejiang has a very complete mechanism and digital system, and the market has been well nurtured. Other provinces still need a certain amount of cultivation, which is also the reason why Digital Technology took the lead in choosing Zhejiang.
Expansion: increase coverage scenarios + guarantee data base
Qian Yuanzhi expressed that he hopes that Digital Button Technology will be able to achieve the implementation of typical application scenarios within and outside Zhejiang Province in a short period of time, set benchmarks, and promote and copy, so as to truly solve the pain points in the medical industry; hope to help hospitals Realize efficiency increase and cost reduction, and promote synergy, and then better go to the whole country. In the future, Fun Button Technology will expand the scene to cover a wider range, from hospitals, homes, fitness venues, etc., “covering scenes that can generate health data, including the heat of the rice you cook at home with a rice cooker.”
Qian Yuanzhi believes that the current blockchain technology will become the same infrastructure as water, electricity and coal in the future. Whether it is to realize the collaboration of upstream and downstream businesses in the industry with patient health records as the core, or to achieve effective operation of medical data, blockchain technology is required. . In terms of medical data, due to its own sensitivity, it needs careful protection. In terms of data desensitization, the blockchain provides derived calculation results instead of raw data. The data dissemination method of asymmetric encryption authorization guarantees private data. It also makes it possible to implement pre-prevention and post-event supervision. The OMAHA alliance itself is also writing a privacy specification for the circulation of medical big data for authoritative organizations, and will also bring certain standards for private data. In the entire industrial chain, whether it is pharmaceutical factories, insurance institutions, research institutions, and hospitals, all have the need to use data to achieve business growth. For Digital Button, this means that there is a broad imagination for the future.