IBM Watson Health and the CDC partnered to research the benefits of blockchain, IBM Watson Health Group's Vice President and Chief Science Officer Shahram Ebadollahi, PhD, said Tuesday, according to Fast Company.
The CDC has been conducting trials on blockchain technology in search of more efficient and secure ways of harnessing data, while IBM has been working with the FDA to explore owner-mediated data exchange on the blockchain. According to Dr. Ebadollahi, the CDC and Watson expect the joint effort will aid in the federal adoption of the technology.
"Blockchain is very useful when there are so many actors in the system," Dr. Ebadollahi said, according to Fast Company. "It enables the ecosystem of data in healthcare to have more fluidity, and AI allows us to extract insights from the data … With blockchain we can collect data and extract insights through AI, and the future will have an economy around that we can hardly even imagine right now."
Dr. Ebadollahi added the CDC will release a more detailed announcement of the partnership in the months to come.
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