F110 "Patient records on the blockchain are still a dream" (Robert Miller)

Faces of Digital Health

In the last two years, the hype around blockchain settled down, and now projects can focus more on development rather than managing attention. Many projects have gone from an idea to a pilot program or an actual implementation. However, we probably won't see patient medical records on the blockchain soon, says Robert Miller - Director of Product Management and Strategy at Consensys Health. ConsenSys Health builds Ethereum-based solutions for cybersecurity, compliance, privacy, bioethics and identity, applying the deep technical capabilities of ConsenSys to advance the healthcare industry. The blockchain community knows Robert because of his regular newsletters about blockchain in healthcare. He is diligently following and reflecting on the development of the industry. We discussed why are patient health records on blockchain currently still a dream and which projects are slowly moving beyond the project phase. An interesting research initiative is MELLODY - (acronym for Machine learning ledger orchestration for drug discovery). MELLODY is a collaboration among 10 major pharma companies that are using a blockchain-based infrastructure and federated learning to speed up drug development. Robert also shared his view on MELLODY - and I also added the link to his analysis in the show notes. We also talked about the potential use of blockchain for vaccination certification and more. Further reading: Robert’s analysis of the data and privacy-related challenges in the MELLODY project. Recap of the show: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f110-patient-records-on-the-blockchain-are-still-a-dream-robert-miller