A closer look at VeChain’s two newest health dApps

A closer look at VeChain’s two newest health dApps

VeChain’s infrastructure forms the backbone of two groundbreaking new apps for healthcare, including a web app for certified medical institutions to upload a patient’s medical records, as well as a mobile app for tracking disease tracing and other diagnoses.

With a rising population and longer life expectancies, healthcare systems are adopting new technologies to cater to more patients and make faster and smarter diagnoses; ultimately, offering a better patient experience. This is particularly true now. A look around the world shows countries like South Korea and Singapore developing COVID-19 tracking apps, and China has already introduced a number of provincial level “health code” QR systems.

Data sharing, however, remains a critical pain point. According to a 2019 SAP report, health system executives believe that “the greatest impact on improving patient experiences is data sharing between providers, payers and government and industry”.

Sharing sensitive personal information comes with important security and privacy concerns so we were eager to learn how the E-NewHealthLife and E-HCert App will overcome these challenges.

Enter the E-NewHealthLife and E-HCert Apps

E-NewHealthLife and E-HCert App are two blockchain enabled platforms that give patients control over their health records, improve medical data sharing and increase hospital operational efficiencies. While the E-HCert mobile app allows individuals to validate medical test results with third parties, the E-NewHealthLife web app simplifies the process of visiting a hospital.

Through the E-NewHealthLife medical data management system, doctors can upload a patient’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) onto the blockchain which, with the patient’s authorisation, can be temporarily accessed by other institutions; essentially acting as a patient passport. Through a unique personal card and an app, individuals can quickly identify themselves, keep track of their health history, and help hospitals improve their performance. Being able to readily share your own medical data means hospitals can treat you faster and in a more informed way without having to carry out unnecessary testing; even when you are abroad. Digitising current paper-based processes also reduces operational efficiencies and allows healthcare institutions to better track and monitor a patient’s hospitalisation journey; enabling them to carry internal audits and performance asset assessments.

(PRNewsfoto/VeChain)

I-Dante, a Cyprus-based development team, worked with VeChain’s ToolChain to build the E-HCert app. Ferdinando Chiacchio, product manager at I-Dante, attributes VeChain’s fee delegation capabilities and modular, scalable and permissioned infrastructure as key factors to develop B2B solutions on ToolChain. Due to the sensitivity of personal medical records, having a permissioned network is critical for privacy and security concerns and less volatile transaction fees makes it easier to build business-friendly solutions. In his opinion, having a flexible and modular architecture is essential as it enables I-Dante to progressively add more functionalities and services into the platform, which is what enabled them to develop the E-HCert app in less than three weeks.

 

 

“The E-NewHealthLife highlights the ultimate Patient Centrality. Redefining the HealthCare industry by leveraging the power of the VeChain Thor public blockchain. I would like to thank the teams that worked hard during these difficult and unprecedented times to build such a complex and sophisticated ecosystem solution.” Dimitris Neocleous

While the E-NewHealthLife contains a person’s full health history, the E-HCert App acts as a certification wallet via which patients can receive, verify and validate their medical test results with third parties. According to Dimitris Neocleous, VeChain ecosystem manager, “where other big companies are focusing on contract tracing, the E-HCert focuses in the return to the society and addresses the new normal in a responsible and cautious way”.

If you are tested negative for COVID-19 (or positive for its antibodies), for example, you will be able to voluntarily prove your immunity through the app and gain access to public places or travel abroad. Enthusiasts will be pleased to know that the plan is to extend the app in mid-June to all lab tests provided by the Mediterranean Hospital.

Something that wasn’t mentioned but is equally important is the benefit of countering falsified medical records and prescriptions; a problem that in 2018-19 alone, cost the UK’s NHS an estimated £1.27 billion. By only allowing accredited institutions to upload medical records on the blockchain, the integrity of the data is maintained, with the possibility to trace and detect the source of any foul play.

The project is still at an early stage, with the Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus being the sole institution currently implementing it. However, it has promising potential and will benefit from network effects. There are many tools that could be integrated into the platform and I am curious to see which ones will be prioritised. A vaccination booklet, for example, could be added into the E-HCert App to help patients (specially children) track their vaccination schedules and make an appointment if needed. Projects to gamify and promote healthy lifestyles could also be developed by awarding “milestone badges” to people who achieve specific health goals. As more countries and institutions join the platform, the ability to automatically translate standardised medical test results could also be introduced.

The options are vast and I am confident that the project will have a positive impact on the healthcare system. It is important, however, to remember that the medical industry is a highly regulated and protected sector so enthusiasts should remain patient. Personally, I am excited about the societal value E-NewHealthLife can bring and look forward to see it grow and, hopefully, become the success it deserves to be.

A recording of the webinar can be found below:

For more information about the E-HCert App visit their website.

Buy VET at OceanEx
Buy VET at OceanEx

Latest Posts

Predicting the Future on VeChain – Why ToolChain & MyStory Must Succeed

Predicting the Future on VeChain – Why ToolChain & MyStory Must Succeed

Editorial by Ben Yorke on what VeChain needs to be successful in a competitive blockchain industry.

This week, we got another look at a new company working with VeChain’s blockchain technology – COS, a subsidiary of H&M, that focuses on sustainable apparel.

This would seem as a step in the right direction for VeChain, especially after a few months of a COVID-19 induced hangover on the PR front. Mainly, it demonstrated that VeChain was making progress with an H&M brand for the first time since 2018. Still, a good portion of the community was less convinced, questioning whether or not this was just another test, that may or may not result in wide-scale implementation.

This brings us to our first sobering fact: Over the past year, it’s no secret that the VeChain community has become very results-oriented, and is more and more demanding of visible on-chain transactions as the only metric they are interested in. While this argument has its merits, it lacks a bit of vision. For VeChain to succeed, the most important factor won’t be immediate transactional volume, but actual revenue earned from real-world customers. More revenue will lead to more investment opportunities (both for and from VeChain), more developers, more marketing, more R&D, more grants, more offices, and a sustainable long-term business model.

Make no mistake, the community is right to be somewhat cynical. They have been fed a steady stream of announcements and articles about proposed ecosystems and revolutionary business models since before the mainnet even came online. While these partnerships are all backed by real business development, there’s no denying the fact that many of them were idealistic and driven by innovation teams and think-tanks, not organic consumer demand.

So as we sit here more than a year and a half since mainnet launch, we can look at what VeChain truly needs to be successful. Let’s start with the basics:

The era of coming up with an idea and creating a token for it are, for the time being, looking like a fairly unrealistic get-rich-quick scheme. The blockchain has a lot of feasible use cases, but investors are showing that being a decentralized version of Kickstarter isn’t one of them. With the majority of the VIP180 tokens being miles below ICO value, we should stop looking to small cap alt-token projects to add value.

The word “Ecosystem” is overused

An ecosystem implies a thriving circular economy supported by the Foundation, businesses, government agencies, developers, and end-users. While that might be the endgame for blockchain development, right now VeChain’s main struggle should be focused between blockchain projects and businesses. VeChain has always said that their motto was to “Create Valuable Transactions”, not “Create complex commercial relationships between multiple parties”.

Don’t succumb to “Scope Creep”

When a project starts adding new functionality and stakeholders, the original goal tends to get a bit lost. That’s why every adept project manager knows to pick a target and see it through, regardless of the distractions that might appear along the way. The blockchain industry is very guilty of falling into the scope creep-trap, brainstorming revolutionary new business models while pondering about the theoretical potential of the technology. What we really need is hard proof: evidence that businesses are willing to pay for blockchain solutions.

So while discussions about carbon credit schemes and self-reporting vehicle passbooks are nice, and probably something we will see in the future, the current focus should be VeChain’s original use case: Supply chain optimization and product authentication. Don’t expect businesses, consumers, and government agencies to come piling into intricate ecosystems – make it easy for ordinary companies or individuals to start plugging their products into the blockchain.

Two Simple Solutions – ToolChain & MyStory

First, this is where ToolChain really shines. A simple package of IoT and blockchain, sold directly to businesses without the need for additional software development. London fashion designer Sarah Regensburger showed us how easy it was when she added ToolChain’s NFC tags to her creations at Paris Fashion Week earlier this spring. Like Sarah, there are many other companies manufacturing products with unique origins that would also benefit. These come scattered all over various industries including food & beverage, apparel, furniture, and much more. Reaching them and showing how easy integration is will be the first step – convincing them that their product sales or brand reputation will improve is the bigger challenge.

MyStory is the next level up – it’s essentially ToolChain with DNV GL as a trustable third-party verifier and implementation specialist. It comes with a price tag, but for businesses like COS that are serious about their brand image, the added price should be worth it. DNV GL’s respected reputation as a classification company should help with client outreach, but once again the challenge becomes proving that integration will lead to higher sales. That’s why seeing another H&M brand working with VeChain is so encouraging. COS undoubtedly saw the results of the previous use cases, and decided that MyStory’s service was worth it.

The brands at H&M aren’t the only ones. We’ve long seen Italian wine producers (Ricci Curbastro, Ruffino  and Torrevento) using MyStory for verification, earlier this spring Italian olive oil producer Buondioli and food producer La Fiammante also appeared to have joined them. This once again shows other brands confirming what the early adopters believed in – trust matters.

If we add H&M’s COS to the mix, we see a steady path of adoption, the kind of progress for DNV GL that earns revenue and keeps the MyStory project a priority for the 150 year old corporate giant. And these are the questions every VET holder should be asking: Does it benefit companies like DNV GL, VeChain, and PwC to keep pushing public blockchain solutions? Will companies pay to authenticate their products? Can VeChain afford to keep hiring employees and expand their operation?

Thankfully, right now the answer seems to be yes. And when you look around at the competition for ToolChain and MyStory, there isn’t much out there, other than extremely expensive consortium solutions from large technology providers running on a permissioned chain like Hyperledger Fabric. It’s exactly ToolChain and MyStory that set VeChain apart from every other public blockchain protocol in the business. You could theoretically build a vaccination tracking network from the ground up on a number of decentralized platforms – but you could only get a complete product authentication software suite in one place: VeChain. That’s why if VeChain is to succeed, it won’t be because of what we saw yesterday on the block explorer. It will be because what companies all over the world are doing, as they take notice of how increasing trust is leading to higher sales, validating their decision to try out blockchain.

VeChain just needs to keep things simple, and stick to what they do best: Authenticating goods and making product data more visible. And with DNV GL around to verify things, it shouldn’t be too farfetched to see VeChain come out on top.

Buy VET at OceanEx
Buy VET at OceanEx

Latest Posts

ToolChain, ToolChain Credits, and VTHO – how does it all fit together?

Last Spring VeChain revealed ToolChain, their new blockchain-as-as-service (BaaS) offering at their global summit in San Francisco. Over the following year, ToolChain scaled from being used to tag custom shoe designs to being incorporated into Walmart China’s food safety and traceability platform. The idea has remained consistent throughout – create a way for businesses of all sizes to incorporate public blockchain and IoT solutions without having to deal with the technicalities of a rigorous development, testing, and deployment. More importantly, the cryptocurrency-free solution saves businesses from having to manage assets and deal with regulatory headaches.

The site features an overview, a trial registration form, and a document center that go into more detail about the service. The document center is where the bulk of the info lies, with technical data about IoT hardware including sensors, chips, and the VeKey, a multi-sig enabled hardware wallet and identity solution. For those more interested in this side of ToolChain, checkout the Products & Services section.

What is a TCC?

ToolChain Credits (TCC) are not a cryptocurrency, nor do they interact with the blockchain. They are a traditional method of payment that businesses can use to create digital identities to new products (known as a VID), upload data, manage users, and other administrative needs. Since this unit of accounting doesn’t involve cryptocurrency, ToolChain is completely compliant in difficult and conservative regulatory regions that are less friendly towards digital assets. They are priced to reflect the cost of using the blockchain (in VTHO) and other development costs associated with the ToolChain platform. So what happens when a business purchases VIDs with ToolChain Credits?

The foundation is able to complete the transaction on the blockchain mainnet by supplying the VTHO themselves. Note: Every transaction on VeChain requires VTHO, it’s just a matter of who sponsors the payment. For ordinary transactions, users pay directly. However, using fee delegation, it’s possible for businesses or dApp users to pay in regular currency, and have a secondary party (in this case, VeChain themselves, pay the VTHO). The advantages of this method are plentiful:

  • Simplicity – Businesses don’t need to manage VTHO or worry about price fluctuations
  • Faster onboarding – Steps to deployment are significantly reduced
  • Regulator-friendly – Major regions such as China don’t allow for cryptocurrency to be used as a form of payment
  • Generates revenue – VeChain have a consistent revenue stream to fund future development, staff salaries, research & develop new technology, and put towards marketing, PR, and client outreach

All these advantages should lead to one thing: Faster adoption for businesses.

But wait a minute, what happened to the tokenomic model?

A few in the community were quick to disclose their concerns about how this might effect the market price of VTHO. Obviously, it would be ideal to have businesses buying VTHO and VET from secondhand markets such as OceanEx. In addition to this being the original vision for the project, this would also be the fastest way to increase the price of VET, a move most retail investors would welcome. Still, the number of businesses who would be able to manage that process, both from an operational and risk management perspective, are quite low. This would significantly reduce the potential client base for ToolChain, and with it the rate of adoption. Investors from 2017 should accept that the cryptocurrency side of the blockchain industry has not progressed at the pace we originally expected, with cryptocurrency largely failing to gain any traction over the last few years, especially as far as commercial enterprises go.

From a long-term perspective, VeChain must do what’s best for VeChain (the company). If VeChain can’t earn revenue, then development slows and the whole ecosystem loses momentum. On the flip side, if they are earning substantial revenue, expanding the ecosystem will be much easier, as well as securing the future sustainability of the project. This follows the theory that VET token price can’t be continually pushed up by the foundation, and must be pulled by organic demand for VTHO. But exactly how much is needed to accomplish that?

Some quick math shows us that with a contract call requiring a minimum of 51 VTHO, and 70% of that burned, we are left with a minimum of around 35 VTHO burned per ToolChain transaction. To match the daily generation rate, ToolChain would need somewhere in the range of 1 million transactions per day. That’s not an unthinkable amount, and certainly plausible if a few large clients were onboarded. Still, VeChain’s 10th Financial Report shows that VeChain controls around 25% of the total supply, meaning that they are probably sitting on a fairly large supply of VTHO as well. Skeptics might point out that they have enough to fund a few hundred thousand transactions per day without needing to buy on the open market for the foreseeable future. This isn’t a great sign for people focused on the short-term demand for VTHO, unless third parties and community projects can increase the burn rate.

We are left with two conclusions – the first being that ToolChain is well-positioned to become one of the top public BaaS platforms on the market, with a simplified, regulatory-friendly software and IoT hardware suite of technology that is easy to onboard new clients. On the other hand, VET holders are forced, at least for the immediate future, to wait for a major jump in transactions, before we can see open market VTHO consumed by ToolChain. This boils down to a simple case of long-term patience versus those demanding instant gratification: a game VET holders should be all-too-familiar with.

Want to read more? A complete Twitter update was given by VeChain’s Jason Rockwood and summarized on Reddit here.

Buy VET at OceanEx
Buy VET at OceanEx

Latest Posts

VeChain Community Member Uses ToolChain to Verify Black Tea Products

One of the more active members of the Chinese community became one of the first VeChain channel partners by registering black tea on the blockchain. This is a great example of how small and medium sized enterprises can use Toolchain to gain access to blockchain solutions.

The tea uses QR codes to provide customers with more complete product data. With items like black tea, the origin can be the difference between valuable and ordinary tea. However, origin can be easily faked because packaging is often self-produced. Having blockchain-backed data can help with building trust and educating customers who might be unfamiliar with the techniques and history of the tea-producing farms.

Since the community member, nicknamed GuaiGuai, is very active in the community, he has even put the product up for sale on WeChat and is accepting RMB, VET, VTHO, and ETH. Currently he is working on implementing his solution into other eCommerce portals, to expand his domestic market.

ToolChain is VeChain’s BaaS platform, that gives approved users access to the same powerful tools used by large enterprises like Walmart China. For more information, visit this post by community member Wilson Cheah.

Buy VET at OceanEx
Buy VET at OceanEx

Latest Posts

Vetcast Episode #5: Talking X-Nodes & ToolChain with Fabian from VeChainStats

Fabian rejoins us to give us his thoughts on recent events in the ecosystem. As June officially arrives, we look closer at the events unfolding in China. 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy VET at OceanEx
Buy VET at OceanEx

Latest Posts