MedChain, IBM’s Cognition Foundry Team up for Blockchain Medical Records

MedChain, a newly-established company that develops blockchain and decentralized applications (dApps) for electronic medical records (EMRs), said it has partnered with IBM Business Partner Cognition Foundry to combine IBM LinuxONE server with its blockchain solution and implement it in healthcare.

MedChain and Cognition Foundry will collaborate to help patients control their healthcare data and support researchers who work on new treatments.

According to MedChain, incorporating IBM’s server will allow the company to move to the second phase of its project.

“Phase II is the data-intensive AI and deep learning involved with analyzing all that data. Building on top of the existing MedChain permission structure, only the patient can authorize their data to be used in research,” MedChain chief technology officer Steve Wishstar was quoted as saying in the press release.

He added that the second phase would secure significant storage of full lifetime data on the blockchain.

“The effect of having each patient's data accessible by all care providers means new discoveries can be made based on the 'holistic' view of each and every procedure or medication taken,” Wishstar said.

Developing the first phase of its project, MedChain has helped patients get control over their personal and health data in the blockchain. Patients could give or block access to health care providers like hospitals and doctors.

The MedChain Network is a multi-layered infrastructure and protocol system that relies on multiple distributed ledgers using use a multi-crypto-token framework. The network is developed on the blockchain technology provided by Hyperledger Fabric, which is compatible with LinuxONE.