MGH imaging lab enters partnership to research blockchain use for patient data

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston is diving straight into the hype of blockchain by collaborating with Korean blockchain startup MediBloc to improve the health system’s patient data-sharing and storage capabilities, according to a report published Dec. 5 by CoinDesk.  

Specifically, MGH’s Laboratory of Medical Imaging and Computation, a joint venture of MGH and Harvard Medical School, will be involved in the new partnership in hopes of expanding their research in medical image analysis, storage and data exchange.  

“In collaboration with Medibloc, we aim to explore potentials of blockchain technology to provide secure solutions for health information exchange, integrate healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) applications into the day-to-day clinical workflow, and support [a] data sharing and labeling platform for machine learning model development,” Synho Do, PhD, director of the laboratory, told CoinDesk.  

The lab and MediBloc made the partnership official this summer and a prototype of the blockchain was launched this August. It is expected to go live before the end of the year and be fully functional in the second quarter of 2019, according to the article.  

See CoinDesk’s entire article below. 

""

A recent graduate from Dominican University (IL) with a bachelor’s in journalism, Melissa joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering all aspects of health imaging. She’s a fan of singing and playing guitar, elephants, a good cup of tea, and her golden retriever Cooper.

Around the web

CMS has more than doubled the CCTA payment rate from $175 to $357.13. The move, expected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cardiac CT, received immediate praise from imaging specialists.

The newly cleared offering, AutoChamber, was designed with opportunistic screening in mind. It can evaluate many different kinds of CT images, including those originally gathered to screen patients for lung cancer. 

AI-enabled coronary plaque assessments deliver significant value, according to late-breaking data presented at TCT. These AI platforms have gained considerable momentum in recent months, receiving expanded Medicare coverage in addition to a new Category I CPT code.

Trimed Popup
Trimed Popup