Tag: Mobile App

A mobile app, also known as mobile application, is a program that runs on a mobile device that a cell phone or tablet personal device.

PetLife: Blockchain for Veterinary Medicine

In a time when blockchain is revolutionizing the security and accessibility of healthcare solutions, one company aims to bring those benefits to veterinary medicine. Petlife, an Estonian start-up partnering with a New York-based engineering team, hopes to use blockchain technology to offer telemedicine for pets.

According to Petlife’s whitepaper, 54% of respondents to a Health Industry Distributors Association’s study are willing to use telemedicine. And with people spending more and more money on pets, Petlife hopes to satisfy the growing demand for quick and secure healthcare for animals.

Petlife’s perks: accessibility and security

24/7 access to pet care

The telemedicine model is appealing for many reasons. Firstly, it allows consumers to reach out to qualified veterinary professionals from the comfort of their own homes as soon as symptoms occur for their pet or farm animal. Petlife offers 24/7 access to a trained network of veterinarians, and claims that they will be able to answer a query within 14 minutes.

Using video conference and chat, pet owners can use the Petlife app to determine what’s troubling their pet. Users have access to various specialists: dermatologist, surgeon, oncologist, etc. During the consultation, the veterinarian will review the pet’s medical record, current symptoms, and prior prescriptions. After questioning the pet owner, they should be able to make a diagnosis and order a prescription.

Medical Records Security & Blockchain Technology

Petlife uses Ethereum blockchain technology to store medical health records. The Petlife medical record includes animal information, test results, immunization results, and personal info—any and all secure and private data. Their Ethereum-based “personal” blockchain will allow users to access their own pet’s data. With this personal account, the user can set permissions for vets and insurance companies, thereby maintaining control of their pets’ data.

petlife application

Blockchain will allow for an immutable record of any transactions that take place over Petlife’s network, while also providing the user with a centralized medical record for their pet.

Who does it work for?

According to Petlife,  the market for veterinary services grows up to 8% every year – making it a 30 billion dollar industry in 2018. With this in mind, it plans to appeal to many consumers all over the world. Starting with consultants: Petlife emphasizes the possibility of monetization in the form of direct sales and consultations of their services.

But Petlife’s marketing emphasizes the individual pet owner in their presentation paper. For example, if a consumer is far away from a veterinarian, they can use the app for quick assistance. Petlife also offers a “second opinion” service in case a customer doesn’t quite trust the diagnosis made by their veterinarian. Also, say your pet needs access to a common prescription? Petlife hopes to ease the process of getting a prescription through the app.

And it’s not just pet owners that can use this technology, but farmers and ranchers. Because diseases are a serious and escalating issue in animal agriculture, this could mean great things for agricultural safety. In fact, Petlife claims that their service will certainly help to combat zoonotic diseases that can spread rapidly on farms.

Token economics: the PETL currency

Like many industries that use blockchain, Petlife has developed their own cryptocurrency called PETL. Those who participate in their crowdfunding campaign will receive bonuses that will then be used for goods and services through the app. Petlife even plans to open an actual store in Zug, Switzerland, where PETL tokens can be used for things like animal feed, clothing for pets, and pharmacy medicine.

petlife application

Through the app, PETL tokens can be used to pay for everything from consultations to X-rays to MRI results. And as with every blockchain transaction, these cryptocurrency transactions will be secure, recorded, immutable, and time-stamped for maximum security.

Petlife proposes to bring blockchain solutions of secure, private transactions to the everyday consumer, allowing pet owners 24/7 access to care. This, along with a variety of exciting blockchain technologies, continues to revolutionize the way we envision healthcare.

subscribe

Subscribe to stay up to date with advancements of blockchain technology in veterinary medicine.

Patientory – Blockchain, A.I. and Population Health Management

Blockchain Solutions for Population Health Management

Patientory is a healthcare start-up aiming to transform the way patients keep track of their health information by empowering them to manage their own health care. Although based in Atlanta, Patientory grew out of a collaboration between Boulder, Colorado’s Boomtown Health-Tech Accelerator and Colorado Permanente Medical Group (of Kaiser Permanente). They are also in partnership with Startup Health.

Patientory has placed their focus on four interrelated areas: a mobile app, the Electronic Health Record, the health sector’s first crypto-token, and Patientory’s blockchain platform.

The Patientory mobile app

Simply called “Patientory,” the Patientory mobile app enables users to store, view and track their health care data using HIPPA-complaint blockchain technology. Patientory’s advanced patient profile gives users instant access to their:

  • Medical history
  • Doctor visits
  • Medications
  • Immunizations
  • Health insurance

On the Patientory blog, the team argues that the digitization of health care information not only has obvious advantages, such as instant access to one’s health data, but less immediately noticeable advantages as well. These include a reduction in lost data (e.g. from indecipherable handwriting); enhanced patient-doctor communication; emergency alerts (e.g. of life-threatening drug-interactions); and an increase in preventative care due to empowered and informed patients. More generally, Patientory claims that the digitization of health care data will increase healthcare quality and efficiency while reducing the nation’s healthcare costs by billions each year.

Patientory and the EHR

According to Patientory CEO Chrissa McFarlane, adoption of the Electronic Health Record has reached “approximately 90%” among health care providers. Nonetheless, McFarlane points out that recent security breaches have only worsened concerns over the privacy and security of EHRs. Furthermore, doctors and hospitals are often unable to share their information with one another. The result is not only an inefficient system, but a marked decrease in the quality of care. After all, every minute that doctors spend manually entering their patient’s data is another minute they could have spent with their patient. McFarlane maintains that blockchain is the most popular solution to the problem under discussion among technologists specializing in the healthcare sector. Patientory is building their platform accordingly.

The Patientory crypto-token

On April 25th, Patientory announced that they were taking a bold step toward realizing the task of interconnecting patients’ EHRs (while preserving their privacy) with the introduction of the first crypto-token to the healthcare sector. According to McFarlane, the Patientory platform will transfer tokens—PTYs—to “reward providers that work together” and provide the best care to their patients. The result: both a reduction in the cost, and an increase in the quality, of healthcare. Patientory’s token sale is set to open on May 17th.

The Patientory platform

 

On a more technical level, the Patientory platform (a health information exchange or HIE) makes use of secure, closed loop, distributed, blockchain technology to encrypt and decentralize data so that it distributed and HIPPA-compliant. As a result, with Patientory’s help, “the healthcare ecosystem” now has the means to embrace a blockchain platform and “to seamlessly exchange” information. According to Patientory, providers have every reason to participate, as the blockchain system promises to improve efficiency, eliminate redundancy and bring down the cost of care.

patientory

Taking a broader view, Patientory sees a new model emerging for the U.S. healthcare system. McFarlane explains that the overall goal is to transition the healthcare system in the U.S. from a “pay-per-service” platform to a “value-based” platform. But to accomplish this task requires a trusted healthcare information system that enables participating organizations to track and reward “medical interventions” based on their “quality, value and effectiveness.”

Overall, Patientory has a bold vision backed by a sophisticated app and blockchain platform. Yet the healthcare system has been slow to embrace systematic change in the past. Therefore, whether Patientory will succeed where others have failed in transforming the health sector is an open question. For fans of the “Facebook for healthcare,” a cautious optimism may be in order.

subscribe

Subscribe to stay up to date with the latest blockchain innovation in healthcare.