Medicalchain, a platform designed for recording patients’ medical records on Blockchain, has announced a partnership with the London-based Groves Medical Group for a pilot program giving patients access to telemedicine and the ability to pay in crypto, Medicalchain’s Medium post reported March 6.
According to the Medium post, this partnership makes The Groves the first UK medical practice to use Blockchain and accept crypto payments for healthcare services.
The Groves is made up of 4 general practitioner (GP) practices containing a total of over 1,000 private patient families and 30,000 registered patients, and will begin using the pilot program in July 2018 with Medicalchain’s Hyperledger Blockchain technology.
Storing and recording patient health records on the Blockchain will allow organizations like medical institutions, researchers, and health insurers to request permission to access a patient’s file in order to record their own services on the digital ledger. Medicalchain has partnered with Civic to use its secure identity platform to verify doctors and their licenses to operate.
The Medicalchain pilot will create a free wallet for patients to maintain full control over their medical records and telemedicine services. GP consultations over video will be available to patients using the Medicalchain pilot as well. Patients can pay for medical services with cryptocurrency, and the Medium post notes that users will be “incentivized” to pay for any telemedicine services with MedTokens, Medicalchain’s cryptocurrency.
Dr. Vince Grippaudo, a Senior Partner at The Groves, stated in the Medium post that the partnership is a “unique opportunity” to bring Blockchain into healthcare for a patient’s benefit:
“We believe that by empowering people to choose how they access healthcare, we can reduce the burden on public health services. The goal is to improve health services, not only in the UK but across the world, and with Medicalchain we believe we can be a part of that.”
After the WannaCry cyber attack in May 2017 that crippled much of England’s National Health Service, City University London and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur began working together on a consortium to protect health care systems from cybercrime through Blockchain architecture.
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