Guardtime, an Amsterdam-based software security company, has launched a blockchain-supported personal care record platform, which officials say provides up to 30 million U.K. NHS (National Health Service) patients with instant access to their primary care information, their personal care pathways and medication adherence support through their smartphones.
Guardtime, together with its industry partners Instant Access Medical and Healthcare Gateway, made the announcement on June 20, that by using Healthcare Gateway’s Medical Interoperability Gateway service, Guardtime’s blockchain-supported platform—MyPCR—can provide millions of U.K. NHS patients with immediate access to their health data.
“The platform is designed to deliver immutable proof of health data provenance and integrity, GDPR patient data rights management and automated verification of medication adherence,” officials attest. Personal care records can now be stored on the PCRCo app, allowing both patients and healthcare professional to be continuously updated on the patients’ diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plans, they add.
In the U.S., it is estimated that medication non-adherence adds an additional $290 dollars annually in healthcare costs. It's also the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality, responsible for 30 to 50 percent of treatment failures and 125,000 deaths annually. Indeed, patient medication adherence means the continuous monitoring and verification of patients to a specific, personalized treatment plan or personal care pathway (PCP). But delivering this electronically and at scale however has been challenging to date due to challenges of capturing patient consent and a secure mechanism to deliver personal care information to a patient in a timely and compliant.
However, Guardtime officials say that the MyPCR platform interfaces with all three major U.K. NHS GP systems, enabling National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) based personal care pathways to be rolled out to patients.
