The Taipei Medical University Hospital has launched a healthcare platform aimed at improving patient referral services with the help of blockchain technology. The system will also help in integrating healthcare networks which will allow easily accessible medical records for patients.

Access to Medical Data

The development of the Healthcare Blockchain Platform is considered a great improvement in the public health care system of Taiwan as it provides referral services to people, along with several other long-term healthcare services.

The collaboration of over 100 community-based clinics has been made possible as a means of addressing common issues in healthcare using blockchain technology. According to the hospital the main issues addressed include the physician referral process, data transfers between medical institutions and individual patient portals.

The platform offers complete medical records along with laboratory results, medical images and other clinical information. Smart contracts are utilized by hospitals and healthcare clinics for requesting and authorization of patient records, thus greatly improving the safety of data exchanges between different hospitals.

Blockchain Technology Minimizes Risk

Chang Shy-shin, the head of the Department of Preventative and Community Medicine, said the current system relies on nurses at referral counters to assisting patients seeking referrals. The new platform will enable people to log into their password-protected mobile app to request a referral with utmost ease.

According to Chen Ray-jade, the hospital superintendent, blockchain technology can help combine the medical records with health records from multiple sources. The technology will also help in securing the transfer of records by enabling the notification and consent feature.

Chen said that the use of blockchain technology will minimize security breaches due to its decentralized nature. Furthermore, people will not have to undergo the tiresome process of manual transfer of inter-hospital data.