Announcements

Is Academia Hindering True Innovation Acceleration?

Tory Cenaj, Founder and Publisher, Blockchain in Healthcare Today, contact t.cenaj@partnersindigitalhealth.com. The views expressed are solely her own and do not reflect those of the editorial board, reviewers or staff members.

Partners in Digital Health (PDH) announced a no APC fee aimed specifically at negative, unconventional, null, neutral, and failed research, on the heels of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Federally Funded Research Guidance announcement, in Sept 2022.

To date, no such research has been submitted.

Last week I spoke with a Rear Admiral, Chief Nurse, from the US Public Health Service, and others in government and NGO service. All agree how important sharing negative data is.

The obstacle is academia and its promotion reward system.

To reiterate our message: "Progress in science is not only made based on positive data, but also on negative results. Guidance to the scientific community should include and emphasize the importance of negative data across both public and open access scientific publications.”

Scientists have become accustomed to celebrating only success and have forgotten that most technological advances stem from failure. When negative results aren’t published, other scientists can’t learn from them and end up repeating failed experiments, leading to a waste of public funds and a delay in genuine progress.

Researchers are particularly challenged to disclose negative results that are not consistent with previously published positive data. In addition, positive findings are more likely to generate citations and funding for additional research, but negative data saves institutions funding wasteful projects and puts ecosystems on the right track for faster solutions and outcomes that benefit the entire ecosystem. This is critically important in new research fields and markets that are evolving - fostering real world applications and scaled implementations.

Partners In Digital Health is pleased to facilitate these critical efforts to accelerate research success, augment true innovation, and create a trusted repository where research, public, and private communities can find unconventional answers to streamline meaningful solutions. The publisher will waive the APC for negative and null research, for accepted peer reviewed manuscript submissions.

Topic areas will include but are not limited to the following:
> What and why the research did not work, eg., rigor in study design, lack of funding, issue with patient recruitment, support from superiors or colleagues, bias, etc
> Analysis of impact
> Consequences of negative research
> Lessons on mitigating negative results and why
> Benefits of sharing research
> Good research practices, best practices
> Key personal learnings
> Addressing issues of reproducibility
> Ethical violations

Papers on related and complementary topics will be considered.

Submission Requirements
> Papers should be original submissions not previously published or under active consideration by other journal
> Papers will be 3,000 maximum word count
> Submissions must include a section for an analysis and recommendations for future researchers, and journal readers

Upload on th BHTY Submission Portal at https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions

Posted: 10.3.2023

It’s Time for an Integrity Throwdown: Conflicts of Interests in Scientific Communications

Some people begin their day with a market or news update, meditation, exercise routine or something funny. I begin my day with a dose of Retraction Watch. Recently, a couple of articles caught my eye.

As the publisher of two new emerging market journals, I’m particularly sensitive to the ethics and integrity exhibited in the marketplace. New publishers are typically met with a great deal of skepticism. Ivory tower eyebrows are raised and so is the word “predatory” when a new journal is launched – unless, of course, you are a member of the “legacy brigade.”

During the height of unscrupulous fraud in the crypto currency market, I decided to validate and build credibility for blockchain technology’s potential by launching the first international open access peer reviewed journal in blockchain for healthcare (BHTY), and proceeded to roll the boulder up the hill.

I was careful to distance the journal with a niche editorial mission and ethical practices to set us not only apart from the heard, but anticipated how much more relevant ethics would become.

I believe it is time for an integrity throwdown.

When we launched BHTY, we did not accept editorial board members or peer reviewers that were from the commercial side albeit some of the most brilliant minds were employed there - and we needed them because it was such a groundbreaking field. Why? Because we didn’t want potential “commercial interests” besmirching the integrity or perception of the clarity, purpose and ethics of the journal’s editorial rasion d’etre or reputations listed on the masthead.

It pained me to asked three board members to step down when they transitioned to the commercial side. We published mission pillars and partnership expectations, which are still in effect (see http://www.partnersindigitalhealth.com/method.html). In year two of publication, we opened the board to those on the commercial side because many were accelerating the market with hands on experience versus theoretical, so we bit the proverbial bullet. Ultimately, two board members rejoined while the third took another path.

From the outset, we required publishing conflict of interest/financial disclosures. This is for transparency and trust purposes. I wanted to be as transparent with the audience as possible to conclude BHTY was and is a credible journal. COIs are published here. All journal editorial, review and staff members submit disclosures that are published on the journal site on the COI tab. To my knowledge, no other journal in the market does so.

Our portfolio motto is “building trust through truth.” We were recently recognized as new members of COPE. I don’t doubt COI disclosures were a factor in the decision.

Fast forward and back to Retraction Watch. One morning, I was opening emails to find an article titled "Obesity journal editor’s extensive company ties raise concerns about conflicts of interest in publishing.” This time, my eyebrow is raised. The link led me to an article published by Ed Silverman, a reporter from Pharmalot (note: this is a paywall publication, but I couldn’t resist. The first 30 days are free – remember to end your subscription before the trial is over!).

Long story short, the associate editor-in-chief (AEIC) of the Obesity journal in the article was outed because:

The AEIC co-authored a paper in which a manufacturer’s product was mentioned which also included her published financial disclosure (this meets guidelines)
The AEIC embellished the article with added benefits of the therapy (I assume all were on label)
The company paid a firm to provide writing assistance for the AEIC’s article (huge no-no, even in 2013/14)
The AEIC co-authored an editorial praising the company’s pricing model
The AEIC did not disclose the financial relationship in the editorial (again, big no-no)

I’m familiar with the adage “repeat advertising works,” but not by and under the guise of a medical journal associate editor-in chief (AEIC) – or anyone on the board or staff of one.

That same week, another article appeared in Pharmalot by the same author with the title "Conflicts of interest are common among editors and authors of psychopharmacology textbooks.’

With my eyebrow raised (again), what I found disconcerting was that it reported:

“… few professional medical journals report conflicts of interest held by their editorial staffs. To wit, 129 of 130 high-impact medical journals required authors to disclose conflicts, but only 16 of those same journals reported potential conflicts held by individual editors. Meanwhile, in half of 26 journal categories examined…not one journal provided public disclosure of conflicts held by individual editors.”

I contacted the author because there is one publisher that DOES require disclosures from researcher/author, journal board and staff. The bar is set high for new journals like BHTY, and I often wonder if legacy complacency would pass ethics requirements if publishers had to submit their journal(s) today.

After a year of false claims, hysteria and politicizing research, we need to get back to basics and infuse trust in a market that must place patient safety and product efficacy before shareholder and venture capital interests.

Shall we challenge the industry to an integrity throwdown?

Posted: 11.24, 2021

Three Recent Events to Make Us Consider Blockchain for Healthcare Data Management

Hao Sen Andrew Fang^,SingHealth Polyclinics, SingHealth, Singapore; SingHealth Duke-NUS, Singapore^,andrew.fang.h.s@singhealth.com.sg

As an observer of current affairs with a keen interest in blockchain, it has already been a very eventful start to the year. For one, the Bitcoin price made new all-time highs, surpassing US$40,000 and triggering significant media buzz. Yet amid all the hype of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices, I found three major news events to be particularly relevant and instructive for the blockchain healthcare community, especially with regard to data management. In this blog, I wish to share my brief thoughts on these recent events.

Dispute over U.S. presidential election votes

As results from the recent U.S. presidential election were announced, there were already numerous legal challenges to the results citing voter fraud. The Wall Street Journal also reported an appeal made to Georgia’s top election official to re-calculate the state’s results.¹ Dispute over electoral results is not unprecedented, and it reveals the possibility of data manipulation while more importantly underscoring the need for better transparency in data provenance.

In the healthcare context, it is also not hard to imagine a central authority altering health data for its own benefit—such as to report glowing health statistics. In fact, corruption in health systems is real and there are anti-corruption efforts being undertaken by the global health community to address them.² Even in scenarios where there is no malicious intent, the current lack of transparency in which most health data are collected, analyzed, and reported has raised questions and doubts. We had already witnessed this first-hand in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when erratic numbers coming out of Wuhan evoked public doubt and distrust.³ These scenarios only highlight the importance of data immutability and, more broadly, data transparency in the modern age.

Whatsapp announces changes in privacy policy

The issue of data privacy recently came under the spotlight, triggered by the privacy policy changes of messaging app Whatsapp.⁴ Although Whatsapp has since clarified that its new terms will not allow it to access users’ messages, its announcement had users flocking to rival messaging apps perceived as having better privacy features. This unexpectedly strong collective response indicates a deep societal expectation for data privacy. A global survey conducted by Ipsos provides a more quantitative sense of consumers’ worries, showing roughly one-third of the respondents saying they knew little or nothing about how much their personal information is used by companies or governments, and with only a minority (39%) of them trusting their national government.⁵

Currently, health data privacy is protected by law such as the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) depending on jurisdiction. While it is reassuring to know there are such laws in place, the Whatsapp move demonstrates how the protections still fall short. It is not hard to imagine a commercially driven healthcare organization selling patient data (even if it is de-identified) for profit, without explicit knowledge of its patients. To address this, there are growing calls to rethink the current approach of data privacy protection to that of data ownership, including lawmakers.⁶ In this proposed model, healthcare organizations may license the use of patient data and patients earn a dividend from the use of their data. Such a model could eliminate concerns of data privacy as any use of the data would need patients’ explicit consent. In addition, such a model would also offer a more equitable relationship for patients and healthcare organizations with regard to the value generated from the data.

Robinhood abruptly halts services

Amid a Reddit driven rally of certain company stocks including GameStop and AMC, consumer investment platform Robinhood abruptly suspended trading of those stocks.⁷ This unilateral decision enraged retail investors who later went on to file a class action suit against the platform. This exposed the weakness of centralization, where users are at the mercy of a single monopoly platform.

In healthcare, one major area of centralization is in data management. Especially for healthcare organizations that store and access their data on the cloud, it is very likely that they would utilize one among a handful of services such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. What happens if these services suddenly decide to block its services? Subscribing to an additional provider is possible, but it would be prohibitively costly for most. This highlights the need for a system that is not under the control of a single party or small consortium. We need a decentralized data management system which cannot be turned off on a whim.

While these events may seem disparate and unrelated to healthcare—one from politics, one from legal and another from finance—I believe they hold key lessons for the healthcare industry which could easily face similar challenges as presented above. These events demonstrate certain shortcomings and potential weaknesses of existing data services and information systems, which can also be applicable to healthcare. These shortcomings call for systems built on data transparency, ownership and decentralization—properties that are inherent to blockchain technology. Given these recent events and the lessons they bring, blockchain should be strongly considered as a solution to enable a paradigm shift in data management, especially for the healthcare industry.

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank his family and work organization, SingHealth Polyclinics, for their support.

REFERENCES

Posted 2.13.2021

Should Emerging Technology be a Part of Medical School Curriculum?

Cole Holan,¹ Cody Cowley,¹ Jeremiah Alexander¹

¹Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas

When we applied to medical schools there were specific aspects of a program that we wanted. We needed a school that embraced change and encouraged students to seek opportunities outside of the curriculum that allows innovation in medicine to occur.

Modern medical education consists of 1.5 to 2 years of pre-clinical education in a classroom and 2 to 2.5 years of clinical rotations. Currently, only three schools have moved to 1-year pre-clinical, which opens up an extra year of time during medical school. One article suggested that to prepare students for the rapidly changing healthcare environment, undergraduate medical education programs should have the freedom to implement curricula allowing students to individualize their study plan based on their career path and competencies.¹

In the traditional model of medical education, we must determine if we are training doctors to conform to a broken model or to become the solution through innovation and creativity? If the goal is to teach medical students to change the current platform, it is wise to expose students to opportunities to innovate and rethink aspects of healthcare. Medical students need the ability to contribute and work within teams that are innovating. Faculty at our institution have been tremendously helpful in introducing us to some of these innovative technologies.

During our first year in medical school, we had the opportunity to aid in the construction and testing of patient-centric blockchain identity and consent management system with a multidisciplinary team. This experience increased greatly our understanding of the healthcare system.

We think all medical students should be exposed, and, if possible, have the opportunity to work on projects that involve emerging technology —like blockchain. This would benefit student’s learning two-fold: they would get early exposure to technologies they will likely encounter in a clinical setting and they would get to help develop these technologies, allowing a smoother transition into their clinical years and decreasing the learning curve of the health record system or other instruments commonly used in medical practice. The potential of blockchain in healthcare is promising and will likely play a part in the future healthcare landscape.²

We have seen how to view one particular problem while realizing the type of team it takes to brainstorm a multitude of ideas addressing that problem. Working on this project gave us perspective on how emerging technology can shape healthcare, while getting the experience of working within an interdisciplinary team. As new health information systems are built to phase out the current electronic health record system and usher in new ones, it is vital that the teams working on these projects are composed of different backgrounds, so that intricacies of the system are not overlooked. Physicians work on teams to deliver the best outcomes to patients. It should be no different in development of technology to care for patients.

Early exposure to technologies that are likely to be implemented or already recently being implemented in healthcare settings will be paramount to the future physician. Going forward, we should expect medical students to be engaged in what our future looks like. We must learn how to build strong teams that include our counterparts from varying fields, and we must learn how it feels to work on a project with the potential to change the way medicine is practiced. If we don’t see how we can change the system we are in, we won’t.

References

Green M, Wayne DB, Neilson EG. Medical Education 2020—Charting a Path Forward. JAMA. 2019;322(10):934-935.
Khurshid A, Gadnis A. Using blockchain to create transaction identity for persons experiencing homelessness in America: policy proposal. JMIR Res Protoc. 2019;8(3):e10654.

Posted 1.24.2021

**BHTY "Best of" Open Access Articles**

Now in its 3^rd year of publication, join BHTY’s international community of researchers and pioneers accelerating data-driven integration, interoperability and utilization across the healthcare industry around the globe.

Indexed in ScienceOpen, Index Copernicus, Unpaywall, NEBIS, Google Scholar and PKP meta data harvester and member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and DOAJ – and read by nearly 200,000 viewers around the world – we celebrate the “Best of” articles to date and invite you to become a prestigious author and member of the BHTY global community of change innovators too!

To celebrate our continued support for the multidisciplinary ecosystem, we’re sharing articles from past editions to inspire, educate and communicate the breakthrough research and innovation the technology presents for healthcare.

1. The Last Mile: DSCSA Solution Through Blockchain Technology: Drug Tracking, Tracing, and Verification at the Last Mile of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain - William Chien, PharmD, et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v3.134

2. Leveraging Blockchain Technology to Enhance Supply Chain Management in Healthcare: An Exploration of Challenges and Opportunities in the Health Supply Chain - Kevin Clauson, PharmD et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v1.20

3. DMMS: A decentralized Blockchain Ledger for the Management of Medication Histories - Patrick Li et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v2.38

4. Blockchain as a Foundation for Sharing Healthcare Data - Marek A Cyran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v1.13

5. Applications of Blockchain within Healthcare - liam Bell et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v1.8

6. Pragmatic, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology: Paving the Future for Healthcare - Ron Ribitzky et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v1.24

7. Enforcing Human Subject Regulations Using Blockchain and Smart Contracts - Olivia Choudhury, PhD et al

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v1.10

Submit your manuscript here or click https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions

Questions? Reach out to info@partnersindigitalhealth.com

We look forward to your manuscript or technical brief submission.

BHTY Team

Posted 1.20.2021

Transforming Health Care in the Wake of a Global Pandemic

Tory Cenaj, Publisher, Telehealth and Medicine Today

Some of the world’s top leaders and influencers in healthcare delivery transformation and health technologies, including blockchain in health tech and telehealth, converged at the 4th Annual ConVerge2Xcelerate (#CONV2X) 2020 Symposium held virtually from November 10th-12th, to exchange perspectives and solutions to shortfalls in global patient care exposed by COVID-19. The theme of this year’s symposium BHTY hosted was “US-World Health Transformation.”

Impact of COVID-19 on health care

The global COVID-19 pandemic showed how vulnerable healthcare delivery is to patients around the world. Healthcare systems in every country have been challenged – not only in treating patients with coronavirus, but in trying to maintain optimal care for non-COVID patients at the same time.

As a result, new advances in digital health technologies, including telehealth, blockchain, AI and others, are successfully transforming patient treatment models on an international scale. What this event proved is that healthcare transformation, via technology and new global models for greater access and more efficient and effective delivery of healthcare services to patients, is much closer to reality than ever before.

Many of the sessions over the two-day event focused on two main topics: healthcare interoperability, digital health, adoption, scale and equity.

Healthcare interoperability

On Day 1 of the event, this topic was highlighted by speakers from the UK, India, North America and the European Union. Interoperability is the ability of different healthcare systems and processes to communicate and share secure information with other healthcare systems and processes, either within or across organizational borders, in order to advance the effective delivery of healthcare. The consensus was that patients will enable interoperability through trust – a pivotal facet of adoption and scale.

Technology players will have to continue to grow in partnership with healthcare systems, which will be required for both the systems and for consumers.

Digital health

According to Keynote speaker, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, “Digital health is a new reality that will bridge disparity and access to those with lower income and the underserved.” Other Keynotes from Teladoc Health and Mayo Clinic Digital Platform emphasized transforming health care with digital health and virtual care delivery systems, which would make care affordable and equitable, decrease disparities among income levels and geographies, and create global standards and regulations for citizens and health systems around the world.

But digital health is a broad term, one that encompasses several technologies, including telehealth, virtual care, and digital tools and services, requiring standards and integrations that make health care delivery broader, easier and more flexible.

A Keynote session titled, “Virtual Health: The Next Frontier for Healthcare,” with Alex Harris, Partner, McKinsey & Company and moderated by Lyle Berkowitz, MD, FACP, FHIMSS, CEO of Back9 Healthcare Consulting discussed he radical digitization of health care with supply and demand factored in. Healthcare has lagged behind other industries in terms of digitization. But on the consumer (patient) side, mindset and behavior changes have moved the needle on telemedicine visits, and it is projected that 60% of those over age 65 will avail themselves of this technology in the near future.

Physicians question the effectiveness of telehealth visits and financial compensation, and they wonder about adoption and when it will stabilize. Telehealth visits were high in April, but decreased, perhaps due to restrictions in movement as things shut down.

The challenges to adoption that still exist include funding and parity for certain services and long-term reimbursement. Fee-for-service vs. value-based is still unclear. So while providers are still wondering about financial implications, consumers are starting to feel more comfortable.

It is clear that this past year has presented both many challenges to healthcare delivery and opportunities for innovations. The manner in which health care is delivered is occurring at a time when traditional physical interaction between patient and provider has basically been a “cease and desist order” for the safety of both parties.

To learn more and get access to the agenda and program, visit https://conv2x-2020-ondemand.eventcreate.com/

For a top line introduction and select presentations visit BHTY at https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/ConV2X2020

Posted 11.20.2020

Emotional Wellness in the Times of Covid-19

Shanmugavel Sankaran, Founder, NixWhistle

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 has made a huge impact in all our lives now. It has become a part of history which the future generations will be studying about from the internet and maybe textbooks. From following our daily routine of getting up in the morning and heading to work/ education center and coming back in the evening, we are now stuck between the four walls of our house after getting used to the lifelong time of leading our monotonous lives. Although most of us are lucky to stay home and be with our families, there are so many people who were unfortunate to be left back in different cities once the lockdown was declared. There are many highly respectable providers of service and safety who are constantly working out there, battling with the virus and trying their best to not let it reach the citizens of the nation. But sadly, they are unable to go home to their families as they too will have to take precautions.

With so much going on in everyone’s lives now, the pandemic has begun to affect the mental peace of us human beings. We are all used to always staying out, being with people, socializing, and now, we are privileged to go out of the house only when we have to purchase essential items. Although staying indoors at such a time is highly important, it took a lot of people some time to get adjusted to the new yet temporary lifestyle. It was quite expected that some of us will be dealing with akathisia in this overwhelming situation the entire world is facing. It is not easy to just be sitting in one place and sticking to your laptop or phone when you are so used to moving about and exploring.

When it comes to children, they spend most of their time outdoors with their friends running around and playing for hours together. After they come back from school, they look forward to going and playing with their friends the most. But with the pandemic, it is most important for them to stay inside the houses without coming in contact with anyone from outside in order to avoid the spread of the virus. But what happens when a child is forced to stay at home for more than 2 days? They get highly restless and impatient if they are not engaged with something. This restlessness can lead to yelling and shouting because their brain would have heated up. This results in broken peace in the house and because they are young and going out to play is all they can think about, it can be difficult to make them understand the reason behind not letting them go out of the house. In the process of calming down their kids, even parents start losing their patience leading to a lot of disruption in the house.

It's extra overwhelming the ones living by themselves. So many thoughts, so many things to work on, so many thoughts in their minds, it’s just chaotic for them. Living alone might be looked at as having all the freedom where one can do anything as they wish, but the truth is, along with all that comes a lot of responsibilities. Taking care of their house, earning and paying rent, making meals for themselves, etc. They wake up and they don't have anyone around to look at, while having a meal, they’ll be by themselves with no one to speak to. Now this would have been an entirely different scenario when they were living their normal lives of going to work, being with their colleagues, going out with them and then coming back home for the night. But constantly having to be at home from the time they wake till the time they go back to sleep without having any sort of human interaction for more than a month can add a lot of anxiety and overthinking to their lives.

With the economy going down the drain, entrepreneurs are dealing with a lot of stress at this point in their lives. With no inflow of money in their accounts, they are finding multiple ways to reduce their expenditure and to live as minimalistic as possible. Individuals who had plans of beginning their entrepreneurial lives this year will have to postpone their plans to the next year as they would be seeing very little to no success at all if they started their company during a period where everything is shattering.

Blockchain based solutions like WellnessSpeak is all about hearing people out ensuring complete trust and assurance about their emotional turbulence. Such platforms has been made to help individuals having a bad time in this pandemic, speak their thoughts out while in return seeking some support online hoping to make these better for them. All the stakeholders like Tele Health providers and Emotional Wellness clinics are able to come onboard as additional stakeholders onto the platform.

There are so many more problems than the ones listed above which people are going through right now, but because the world is so busy fixing itself, the blockchain powered wellness platforms can be our virtual friend, counsellor or even a guide so that you won't feel like you are alone in this.

Posted: May 2020

Blockchain and Drug Supply Assurance in the Coronavirus Era

Ben Taylor, Founder and CEO, LedgerDomain

Over the past two years, our team at LedgerDomain has been working on bringing the drug supply chain out of the digital dark ages and into a secure real-time mode with blockchain. With the rise of COVID-19, need for real-time drug supply chain assurance has never been more pressing. While healthcare leaders and front-line workers rally together and fight this disease, we believe that a blockchain-based solution capable of tracking therapeutics, test kits, vaccines, and ventilators is necessary to accelerate their efforts to protect the public.

As part of a peer-reviewed study commissioned by the US FDA and published in Blockchain in Healthcare Today, LedgerDomain and UCLA Health joined forces to deploy and test BRUINchain, a last-mile blockchain-driven solution used by real caregivers to help deliver lifesaving medications. The study is among the first of its kind to reveal exactly how blockchain could save pharmacies billions of dollars in labor and safety stock costs alone. In this post I’d like to reflect on the key takeaways from the study and how we can map them onto the new health landscape.

Background on BRUINchain is available here.

Current State of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

In today’s pharmaceutical supply chain, each transacting party typically manages its own database systems. These private databases allow each party to minimize external security threats while maximizing internal data consistency. However, this also means that there’s no shared global system of record representing the single source of truth describing the flow of items through the pharmaceutical supply chain. This leaves the supply chain as a whole more vulnerable to common attack vectors such as man-in-the-middle or spoofing.

Why Blockchain for Pharmaceutical Supply Chain?

In three years, under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), the US pharmaceutical supply chain will be brought together by an electronic, interoperable system to identify and trace prescription drugs as they're distributed throughout the country. One of the core requirements of the DSCSA is that prescription medications must have a unique product identifier, which takes the form of a 2D barcode.

We realized that these federally mandated barcodes could be the foundational information building block for a common data model. Combined with blockchain, this could enable a system of record that would lessen the need to trade data integrity and privacy for global visibility and interpretability. In this way, blockchain can be a source of universal truth for hundreds of pharmaceutical and biotech enterprises and their vendors to work collaboratively and communicate with hundreds of wholesalers and tens of thousands of dispensers.

The BRUINchain Pilot Application

The keystone of our study was BRUINchain, a blockchain-based mobile solution and notification system designed to track and trace changes in custody of drug within a dispenser organization using FDA-stipulated barcodes. By combining blockchain with commercial off-the-shelf technology, BRUINchain makes it possible to track and verify drugs in a busy hospital or neighborhood pharmacy.

From the receiving bay to patient administration, caregivers scanned unique 2D drug barcodes using the BRUINchain mobile app. During their journey, drugs passed a series of checks until they were administered to the patient. New barcodes were routed to a trading partner for verification, and the drug was held back from being administered. At any time, the prescriber could view the progress of the drug through the pharmacy into the clinic.

BRUINchain Learnings and Outcomes

The BRUINchain pilot provided us with important insights into what a larger implementation of a DSCSA verification system would look like. It also validated the use of commercial off-the-shelf technology in a pharmacy that relies heavily on legacy systems. Barcode scanning was nearly 100% effective with commercial off-the-shelf technology. Drugs could be tracked at a highly granular level. The system was able to track expiration dates, verify barcodes, and make it easier for pharmacists to inspect and report problems.

During the study, we found that the rollout costs for DSCSA compliance could be massively reduced by a real-time blockchain system – a $183 million annual savings to dispensers in the United States, as well as a major bulwark against bad or fraudulent transactions. Real-time verification would also minimize the amount of safety stock that dispensers need to retain in the event of potential quarantine events, freeing up $20 billion in inventory.

Blockchain and COVID-19

So what does this mean in the coronavirus era? The unique identifiers mandated by DSCSA were essential to our pilot, but many types of medical supplies lack unique identifiers. We’ve heard again and again from industry stakeholders that the value provided by a blockchain leveraging these unique identifiers exceeds the implementation cost of unique 2D barcodes by an order of magnitude.

With that in mind, blockchain can play a role in three key areas. The first leverages existing unique identifiers on products for real-time track-and-trace solutions like BRUINchain. The second leverages unique identifiers for people, such as Social Security numbers, to provide patients, doctors, and health authorities with real-time updates. The third involves using blockchain in the absence of unique identifiers to power secure and private notifications related to issues at the lot or product level, such as recalls or expiry date extensions.

From the need for improved public hygiene to more robust track-and-trace systems, we will emerge from COVID-19 with some hard-earned lessons. As we rethink healthcare and global supply chain security in the United States and around the world, we have the opportunity to create new tools and systems to empower healthcare providers and patient. Not just against COVID-19, but in all areas of healthcare.

Posted: May 2020