DOKChain : Healthcare-Enabled Implementation of the Blockchain

The blockchain technology is revising the way every sector works and is paving the path for new ideas to revolutionize every business.

One such idea is Dokchain– built by the combined team of Intel and a healthcare API company, PokitDok. It works on Intel's open source Hyperledger Sawtooth technology that works as the underlying ledger and its chips for processing blockchain transaction requests.

DokChain is believed to provide a value based solution, which combines many aspects of the healthcare process to provide effective care. With initial partners like Microsoft, GE Healthcare, Adventist Healthcare, and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System as support, it can definitely bring a change in the healthcare sector.

How DokChain works?

Dokchain uses artificial intelligence in the form of smart contracts. This in-turn connects all the participants of healthcare to the Dokchain and eventually to each other.

It works to bring a change in the concept of storing healthcare data via electronic records and other repositories. A smart contract captures the complete set of every small event to deliver the perfect care every patient requires. 

This development connects all stakeholders, patients and every involved participant in the healthcare ecosystem, into a single secure blockchain network. This includes the endpoint equipment like the electronic medical records and heart monitors etc.

Once data is retrieved from these end points, DokChain records it along with handling permissions through access grants that are maintained and verified by DokChain. This results in a well organized and secure environment for healthcare data to accessed, tracked and shared by all participants and stakeholders.

The key functionality of DokChain is to provide identity management to validate each individual involved in the transaction. It can also perform autonomous auto-adjudication which basically means that if the person is validated, the transactions van happen instantaneously via smart contracts. 

This reduces all the commotion and difficulties involved in the process of bill payments or claim management. 

Why DokChain and Why now?

The blockchain technology, at the core, provides efficiency and establishes a system of accountability by protecting rights via immutable records and high security. The healthcare blockchain is here to fundamentally change the way patients, providers, and the payers interact. 

It improves the security of private and sensitive healthcare information while making data more accessible to the desired authorized party, at the same time. The entire concept is highly flexible, the data is encrypted on the blockchain and is available over the cloud for real-time usage.

Healthcare, for a long time now, has been slow to integrate new technologies and even slower to embrace the cloud. Inefficiencies, high operational costs, legislation and more similar issues have been forcing the industry to re-think about their technical strategies – and the solution to it was blockchain. This was something the healthcare sector needed - A secure and trusted platform to offer better interaction that removes the technical barriers as to how we execute and work on the business of health.

It will be interesting to see how the world accepts this new concept and to what extent will it be successful in transforming the health care industry.