Roche Diagnostics hopes to speed up and automate this process by sending data from the CoaguChek to medical practitioners, enabling more timely management. In a pilot, involving 150 volunteer patients, the Bluetooth-enabled CoaguChek meter sends patients’ INR data at regular intervals via an app installed in the patient’s smartphone. This cloud-enabled mobile app, built by Singapore-based healthcare AI startup ConnectedLife, syncs with the Coaguchek and pushes the data to Azure (Roche’s cloud).

From there the data is shared with the hospital where healthcare professionals can view the data via a management dashboard integrated into the Cardiovascular Information System. The clinician can check the patient’s INR levels and if necessary recommend changes to the dosage. This information can then be pushed via the app onto the patient’s mobile phone, providing warfarin patients more timely advice and care.

The key to this is protecting the patient’s flow of data to ensure it complies with privacy and security regulations. To do this, hashes of the data transactions are stored on a blockchain powered by Ocean Protocol. Using a blockchain ensures that the data cannot be tampered with and its flow can easily be audited and traced back to its origin.

“When it comes to healthcare data, provenance, privacy, and control are the three major issues to be addressed before sharing can become a broad phenomenon.”, said Dr. Franz Pfister, Chief Medical Officer of ConnectedLife.

The pilot ensures the integrity and security of the data, allows the flow of data to be audited, and enables healthcare professionals to trace the source of data if they need to. Lance Little, managing director of Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific, says that the company chose Ocean because it offers a new and safe way for moving data from point A to point B. “this is important for us because data integrity is paramount.” Roche and others in the partnership worked closely with IMDA to provide guidance on operating within the boundaries of local data and privacy laws.

Patients benefit through not having to collect and transmit their own data. They will also have a better understanding of their INR results as well as receiving guidance directly to the app from their doctor. That reduces doctor visits, frees up manpower, and ensures patient care is faster and more direct. Most important, “patients need to understand where the data is being used and who is using it and for what,” says Little. “And Ocean can give that a framework which we can build on. We hope that by receiving more direct and in-time consultation from doctors, patients will be encouraged to regularly test their INR levels. This can significantly improve patient outcomes and minimize risks of complications.”

Studies showed that 92% of patients who monitor their INR levels every three days successfully remain in their therapeutic range compared to 50–60% of patients when INR levels are monitored only once a month². Patients who spend a high proportion of time (> 70%) in the therapeutic range achieve significantly better clinical outcomes³,⁴.

Indeed, this pilot is just a first step. Using Ocean Protocol, says Little, “gives us a platform by which we can play and learn about data sharing using novel blockchain technology and how that might be applied within healthcare.” Because the transaction is decentralised, with no single entity owning it, it is tamperproof and trust is instilled. There are opportunities not only for healthcare data to be shared beyond the industry’s traditional silos, but also to build incentives into the system to encourage those who do own the data to share, knowing that they retain control over it. Patients, for example, could grant consent through the app to sharing their data via smart contracts, receiving rewards in the form of tokens, while all the time ensuring control and ownership of that data.

With Ocean, data owners will be able to set pricing for their data, and see how it can be used and by whom. This opens up possibilities for Roche to “share secure data from different sources with different healthcare institutions or even merge our data with other members of the ecosystem to provide context and relevance,” says James See, business leader of Point-Of-Care Solutions at Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific.

The more members of the ecosystem willing to collaborate, the more data there will be to mine via a secured blockchain platform. Statistics trends and insights, for example, could be gained without divulging private and sensitive information. “We believe this solution can really revolutionize data sharing practices, enable multiple players in a data marketplace and will ultimately transform the way data is transacted in a healthcare environment today,” says See.

This decentralised data exchange will push companies and industries to rethink their business model, to use data more creatively, and to embrace new forms of monetization. Companies like Roche, Little says, will “have to start thinking about how we bring in this new monetary mechanism into our environment and structure our company accordingly, to allow for that to exist alongside our traditional business models.”

Ocean Protocol open sources the technology so more data marketplaces and service providers can be built to enable data sharing worldwide. In future, healthcare and wellness data can be more broadly shared and combined safely and securely, and in turn generate holistic profiles of people that deliver valuable insights to help prevent disease, provide personalised and targeted patient care, and help hospitals better manage their resources.