Annual review healthbank
2018 is coming to an end, and was another year with many highlights, many developments and many exciting experiences. At healthbank the team was on duty almost 24 hours a day. Roadshows on 4 continents, lectures and meetings at many events, numerous discussions with new partners and investors, preparations for the STO, large presence on many social media channels, appearances in media, blogs and video chats.
But the platform also underwent further active development: One of the highlights mid-year was the launch of “healthbank 2.0”. The platform’s security was raised to the highest level with a completely new architectural approach using new encryption, and the range of functions for users was further expanded. With the new release, we have also set up the healthbank platform in full compliance with GDPR, which makes us more than proud. There have also been further improvements to the user interface to improve usability, user experience and Consent Management.
healthbank is thus optimally aligned to integrate additional partners and applications from the healthcare sector very quickly, efficiently and highly securely. “With the introduction of healthbank 2.0, we are ensuring that our users’ health data is stored absolutely securely and that they have full control over their health data,” explains Reto Schegg, CEO of healthbank. “The new version of our health data platform offers new features, is safer, better and easier for users to use.”
The new security architecture features end-to-end encryption based on 256-bit encryption, explains Schegg. “This means that health data is already encrypted on the user’s personal device (PC, laptop or mobile phone) before it is transferred to healthbank’s cloud systems. This is a completely new way of securely storing health data and will bring more trust and protection to the population”. Reto Schegg, Karsten Stampa, Daniela Gunz, Uwe Diegel, Michael Dillhyon and Franco Taisch have been successful healthbank ambassadors in recent months. In addition to our appearances, we have also concluded various partnership agreements, including with Sanovation with the pain diary apps “CatchMyPain” and “PainCompanion”.
The cooperation with the Berlin-based company Thryve is another milestone in healthbank’s open ecosystem strategy. Thryve, whose spin-off roots lie at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research, offers a single interface (Single-API) to connect data from over 200 different fitness trackers, smartwatches and portable medical devices. The collaboration between healthbank and Thryve links the two companies’ services and enables healthbank users to integrate their personal devices on the healthbank platform.
Working with Advancience of Allschwil, Germany, anonymous patient data can be used to develop psychometric profiling tools that are securely stored on the healthbank platform. Christian Vogler, CEO of Advancience, says: “The key to the future of medicine and psychology is the collection of large amounts of data. However, it is of paramount importance that patients gain control over their data and revenues. This is what I find most exciting about the partnership with healthbank: it offers us a unique opportunity to achieve all of our defined goals.”
In order to finance the further growth of the company, healthbank’s Board of Directors decided to carry out a Security Token Offering. In the current pre-STO phase, the interest of investors from Switzerland and abroad is so great that healthbank decided to extend this pre-STO phase and postpone the date for the public sale to the first quarter of 2019 (28.02.2019 to 31.05.2019). “In order to conduct the talks with the interested parties well, we are taking more time and extending the pre-STO phase until the end of February 2019”, explains CFO Karsten Stampa.
According to Stampa, one reason for the great interest is the design of the security token. These are share certificates in the healthbank cooperative and give an investor significantly more security. In addition, healthbank’s security tokens are to be listed and tradable at various trading venues.
After 2018, when the software architecture is to be completely overhauled and the first health services introduced, the healthbank team will continue to expand and internationally scale the ecosystem. “With the Secure Token financing, we want to extend the healthbank model to other countries — worldwide,” explains Stampa. “In this way, we can transport the philosophy and values of the Swiss cooperative to these countries and allow the healthbank ecosystem to grow rapidly worldwide.”
