Working Group to Blend and Leverage Blockchain Industry Expertise with Leading Academic and Research Healthcare Insights

AUSTIN, TX, June 3, 2019— The Austin Blockchain Collective today announced the Austin Blockchain Collective Healthcare Working Group with an initial membership including local blockchain innovators and Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. The working group’s mission is to help develop, explore and promote the applications of blockchain technology that have the potential to positively impact health and healthcare outcomes for patients, the broader Austin community and the nation.

Launched in March 2018, the Austin Blockchain Collective represents some 140 blockchain and crypto companies with a presence in Austin, Texas. “Our members are delighted to be partnering with Dell Med to advance blockchain technology in this fundamentally important space,” said Pete Harris, Executive Director of the Austin Blockchain Collective. “Austin’s blockchain innovators are excited to collaborate with their peers and the broad health ecosystem here to deliver on the promise of this transformational technology in healthcare.”

Blockchain technology – which provides secure access to decentralized, shared, tamper-proof datasets – is set to underpin digital transformation initiatives across many industries, including healthcare. Already, blockchain technology is addressing healthcare challenges, including integration of medical records, securing of personal protected information, accreditation of clinical providers, authentication of pharmaceuticals and patient activity monitoring.

“Austin is a vibrant incubator in the technology sector and I’m glad to see that the city is tapping into this enthusiasm to tackle the challenges in our healthcare system with the establishment of the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group and investment in its blockchain companies,” said Aaron Miri, Dell Med’s Chief Information Officer of Information Technology. “Dell Medical School is excited to collaborate with this endeavor and contribute to Austin’s position as a model health city and global center for innovation in healthcare.”

The Collective’s Healthcare Working Group will leverage the deep blockchain technology knowledge of the collective’s membership and augment it with Dell Med’s leading position as an innovator in academic medicine, including in relation to data science and healthcare informatics. The group, which began meeting informally last year, will be led by two joint chairs:

Aman Quadri, CEO, Amchart and Amsys Blockchain
 

Anjum Khurshid, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Data Integration and Assistant Professor, Population Health, Dell Medical School

"The Collective’s Healthcare Working Group is a great way for companies in Austin (and beyond) to collaborate on real world problems with an elite institution like Dell Medical School,” said Quadri. “My hope is that what we create together can be a model for other public/private partnerships to emulate across the country."

“The Collective’s Healthcare Working Group is an exciting model of creating a platform for exploring the promise of blockchain technologies in improving health outcomes,” said Khurshid. “It allows researchers and clinicians at the University to discuss technical, policy, social, and ethical issues with industry partners for real world applications of blockchain technology in healthcare. We would like to see the University of Texas and the City of Austin become a hub of research and innovation in this field,” he said. 

During regular meetings, the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group will discuss current healthcare-related challenges and determine how blockchain and related technologies might be applied to solving them. The group intends to publish its insights and findings via thought leadership, educational workshops and briefings. 

Supporting Comments from Founding Collective Healthcare Working Group Members

Abstrakt: “Abstrakt’s involvement in the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group, combined with our end-to-end blockchain middleware infrastructure and plug-in-play APIs, provide healthcare leaders with the insights they need  to determine whether a blockchain solution makes sense for their application,” said Corey Segall, President of Abstrakt.

Amchart/Amsys Blockchain:"Our involvement is two-fold. From the Amchart perspective, we have created tools around patient engagement, EMR strategies for providers for patient care and a simple Personal Health Record for patient data ownership. From Amsys Blockchain's perspective, we are partnering with unique tools in the industry, such as Clinical Trial Management Solutions and ideas around Medication Reconciliation, all of which can be leveraged by the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group and modified for its needs," said Kevin Mayes, Chief Product Officer of Amchart.

Chain Business Insights:“At Chain Business Insights, we continuously research how blockchain and related technologies have the potential to the impact food, pharmaceutical and medical cannabis supply chains, in order to underpin food and drug safety and comply with regulatory requirements. We look forward to sharing our insights with our fellow Austin Blockchain Collective Healthcare Working Group members.” said Sherree DeCovny, Co-Founder and Research Principal, Chain Business Insights. 

CognitiveScale:”CognitiveScale's work with artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare has recently extended into blockchain with some national healthcare payers, provider systems and consortia - and we have developed some technology to bring AI and blockchain together for specific healthcare use cases.  Consequently, we are excited to be a member and supporter of the Austin Blockchain Collective Healthcare Working Group with Dell Medical School, and we are looking forward to exploring how we can work with this impressive team to help healthcare realize value from the intersection of these technologies,” said Jeffrey Eyestone, CognitiveScale's Healthcare AI Advisor.

DeepHive: "We at DeepHive are excited to be part of the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group. We deeply understand the data problems that permeate healthcare systems, from data quality and literacy to accessibility and security. We look forward to helping the Collectivesolve these problems through the convergence of cloud, DLT and machine intelligence. Our goal with the HWG is to enable data-driven outcomes by providing applications with a highly robust data architecture, thus driving interventions and insights across the entire care continuum," said David Granzotti, CEO of DeepHive.

Factom:"Factom is pleased to be a member and supporter of the Austin Blockchain Collective Healthcare Working Group. There is tremendous potential at the intersection of blockchain and healthcare, and we look forward to this meaningful collaboration to bring our data integrity solutions to an industry where it is very much needed,” said Jay Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at Factom.

Verimos:"Our involvement in the Collective’s Healthcare Working Group stems from one of our first principles. People should own and control their personal health and wellness data. We believe distributed ledgers are the best place for that," said Bryan Menell, CEO of Verimos. "We have all learned that we need to be our own heath advocate. It's very hard to advocate for yourself if you don't have your data. People exhaust digital wellness data every day through smart scales, digital wearables, and many other consumer devices. We believe this data is incredibly valuable for everybody in the healthcare ecosystem."

About the Austin Blockchain Collective

The mission of the Austin Blockchain Collective is to establish the City of Austin as a recognized global center of innovation in the blockchain space. At a practical level, the Collective advocates for, showcases and nurtures blockchain and crypto companies, projects and innovation exploding in Austin, TX. It leads activities that provide tangible benefits to local blockchain/crypto companies and projects whose daily work is making the Collective's mission a reality. 

For more information about the Austin Blockchain Collective, visit www.austinblockchaincollective.comor email [email protected].