Page - 110 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

decision support. It alsoenablesphysician-coordinatedpatient care that canbe fully managed through the platform. On the other hand, the mobile app enables con- sumers to efficiently track andmanage information about their ownhealth and any costs associated with it. Furthermore, the secure transfer of the users’ medical information,which is securedwithin the PTOYNet blockchain, is facilitated.With these services and benefits, patientory seeks to revolutionise the relationship between patients, physicians and healthcare institutions by utilising blockchain technology (Patientory 2018). It is critical to note that there is still no generally recognised blockchain for the healthcare sector. Nevertheless, patientory has taken an important step in this direction by founding the Patientory Association as a supervisory consortium. 4.3 Medblock The London-based companyMedBlock (medblock.co.uk) intends to store patient data using blockchain and integrate it into the medical treatment process. The company is focusing on a b2b business model which not only allows secure and decentralised data storage and exchange but also wants to enable (predictive) analyses of the available data. The company connects existing EHR systems onto the blockchain network enabling the automation of arbitrary business processes using thedata. It, however, doesnot explain theexactprocessofdata analysis.This is particularly regrettable because the use of artificial intelligence should certainly offer added value here, while the communication between the blockchain and the algorithmwould beworth discussing. Regardless of the procedure, the evaluation of the data should always be carried out under the control of a physician who is supported bymodern technology. Particularly against thebackgroundof increasingglobalisation, it seems tomake sense to store healthdata securely andat any timeworldwide for quick comparison during treatments. This is especially true for emergencies, as rapid data availability can be crucial for targeted and successful treatment. For the patient, a transparent insight into the data is relevant for an overview of their own health and correct billing. They are informed about updates on the blockchain by e-mail.Doctors can avoidmultiple documentation of the same diseases and thus bureaucratic effort by updating existing entries. Insurance companies canmake data retrieval more effi- cient andcoordinate anydifficultieswithall parties involvedon thesamedatabasis. MedBlock promises to connect existing electronic health record (EHR) systems with the blockchain, without specifically addressing the technical implementation of the interfaces.Thecompany relies onaprivate blockchain anduses technologies from IBMBluemix, the IBMCloud and IBMWatson Health. Against the back- ground of the points discussed above, this seems to be the best solution so far. According to the company’s information, the blockchain is based on the Hyper- ledger Fabric v.1.4 platform (as of April 2020), as the following figure shows. MedBlock cooperates with Altoros (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) on the development side. 114 S. Gerth and L. Heim