A Year Ago Today: A Debut Symposium Pointed to Key Themes Addressing the Decentralization of Healthcare

By Pete Harris, Co-Founder and Executive Director, DecentraTech Collective

Many in the blockchain and MedTech world have fond memories of this day a year ago, when the Blockchain and Digital Transformation in Health 2020 symposium was held in Austin, TX. One of the conversations among the 100+ participants that gathered that day was the breaking news that the first cases of coronavirus had been detected in the U.S. A question that many had was what the impact here would be. Tragically, we now have at least a partial answer to that one.
 
The symposium – a unique collaboration between the Austin Blockchain Collective and Dell Medical School – featured keynotes from UCSD Health and IBM and combined presentations and panels from commercial innovators and academia. As such, it acted as a catalyst for a number of important conversations and partnerships that have continued since.

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Blockchain and Digital Transformation in Health 2020 Symposium from Austin Blockchain Collective on Vimeo.

In particular, the symposium addressed several key themes that have risen in visibility and importance over the past year. Notable topics included:

• The need for individual privacy of health information and how blockchain and DecentraTech, including self-sovereign identity, will be important for implementation. This has been borne out by SSI being a central design component of many COVID-19 health passport and contact tracing apps.
  
  
• The applications of blockchain and SSI to allow secure access to patient information systems, as exemplified by UT/Dell Med’s MediLinker system, which builds upon Hyperledger’s Indy and Aries components.
  
  
• The concept that healthcare is a data business, and the monetization of personal healthcare information. This led to a discussion of the emergence of Web 3.0 approaches to allow individuals to benefit when their information is used for commercial endeavors, such as pharmaceutical development.

 
While hosting a follow up in-person symposium in 2021 is unlikely to happen due to the ongoing pandemic, we at the DecentraTech Collective continue to maintain a focus on the decentralization of healthcare and look forward to running online webinars and video conversations and will continue to engage with the medical and healthcare community. See you in person in 2022!