David Houlding, chair of the HIMSS Blockchain in Healthcare Task Force, shared a set of guiding questions he suggested healthcare leaders ask themselves when assessing a new blockchain project.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society formed the task force to provide best practices related to and raise awareness of blockchain, a permanent and decentralized ledger of online transactions or exchanges. Unlike a traditional database that is centrally located and maintained by one party, a blockchain record is shared among a network of users.
"Our strong recommendation from the task force is to target existing business to business networks or consortiums where you already have organizations collaborating," Mr. Houlding said in a Dec. 5 HIMSS blog post. Along with his role as chair of the task force, Mr. Houlding also serves as principal healthcare lead at Microsoft.
Here are four questions for healthcare leaders to ask themselves before determining whether a blockchain project will "make sense" within their organization, according to Mr. Houlding:
1. Is it grounded in business values?
2. Are there multiple organizations involved?
3. Does it work well with other enterprise systems?
4. Is it a complement to your current processes?
To read the full blog post, click here.