Building the Cities of the Future with EPNS
Blockchain technology has been at the forefront of innovation and disruption in multiple industries for the past few years. With technology being experimented with in multiple different ways, industries try to figure out the killer use case for such a novel concept of decentralization that wasn’t really seen before the release of Bitcoin in 2009. Although public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have had a rise in popularity since 2017, blockchain technology is not limited to cryptocurrency and nor is it limited to a public blockchain. Most industries nowadays are looking at ways to implement private blockchains to improve throughput, privacy, and security, all the while maintaining the decentralized aspect of it (relatively).
Two major industries that are rigorously researching and making immense strides in the use of blockchain technology as we speak are Healthcare and Insurance.
Let us take a quick dive into the lives of people at Blockville, a fictional city, by exploring how the fictional citizens of Blockville interact with various processes in their beloved city, we would get a good idea of how blockchain and EPNS could eventually impact our lives and that too from a user perspective (without getting into the nitty-gritty technical jargon).
The curious case of Blockville
Blockville, the city of the future. While people from the past envisioned flying cars in the future, that is not quite the case yet. Blockville — the world’s first blockchain-powered city, the first completely decentralized city, is what they call it. Every system and process is decentralized, from the fleet of autonomous vehicles, to even the election of the government! All with help of the primary infrastructure of communication that they proudly use, EPNS! Your electric vehicle is low on charge? Get notified, and you get to decide whether to redirect to the closest charging station or take your chance and get back home where you already have one set up. Major news to be announced by media and news outlets? EPNS delivers it right to the fingertips of Blockville citizens, and the best part about all of this? Blockville citizens not only receive notifications but earn passive income from these notifications targeted at them. Are elections going on? Use EPNS to signal or vote using on-chain governance voting and even get the chance to predict the outcome of these city mayoral elections with the help of decentralized prediction markets!
Within this fantastic and revolutionary city, there are multiple citizens going about their daily lives. Let’s meet John. John is in his apartment that is tokenized in his name, he seems to be in quite a fuss, trying to stuff his bags at the last moment as he is way behind schedule to leave for the airport to meet his family back home for the holidays.
It’s a hustle and bustle as John packs his bags.
Air travel has come back strong and traveling is no longer feared like it was during the pandemic. COVID is now history, a story to tell your kids like how John’s great grandfather used to talk about his time at the World War.
5 hours before departure, John swings his luggage into the car to make it in time at the check-in as he has a commute of about 3 hours before reaching the airport. On his way, he notices the sky to be quite cloudy and it looks like there is going to be a heavy downpour soon. As he makes way into the airport, John receives an EPNS notification that the flight is canceled due to unpredictable weather conditions. Disappointed, John begins to head to the information desk to know what to do next. But soon he starts receiving EPNS notifications from the Airline he booked his flight with. It mentioned that the next flight to his destination is 8 hours away and that he is more than welcome to avail the complimentary lounge accommodation that the airline was willing to give to all passengers who missed the flight, and his insurance company had also notified him that some of the money which he had used to buy his ticket will be reimbursed to his wallet. John had fortunately signed up for the flight insurance package when he booked his tickets online hence, he was eligible to avail these benefits. John is relieved, and the notifications that were sent to him created no room for any doubt as he was able to now plan how to handle the crisis. John remembered that all airline operations and insurance operations are run on a blockchain and hence the use of EPNS notifications has automated and simplified the communication process which used to be a pressing concern for mainstream adoption, but not anymore.
John reaches his insured room and takes some rest. He looks at his phone and sees a notification from his insurance company, “CHA-CHING!!! You just received a reimbursement deposit in your wallet on behalf of your insurance company”.
He receives yet another notification a few hours later to confirm his next flight and upon confirmation, he receives a QR code to his ticket via notification, and finally, things look good for John. Blockville’s commitment to blockchain and EPNS has made life easier for John, and this is why he loves this city, it gives power back to the people.
Let’s now zoom out from John and now focus on another loyal citizen of Blockville — Kevin. Kevin is in his mid-50s, and has not been feeling too well these days, he fears that he must have contracted something and wants to visit a doctor. But he is currently in another part of the city where he is visiting his son for the upcoming holidays and is away from his home. But it’s okay since all Hospitals and Healthcare centers in Blockville are in a consortium and are connected to the blockchain, he can use a dApp to schedule his appointment with a doctor in the nearest hospital and use his SSI (Self Sovereign Identity). As his appointment is confirmed, Kevin gets notified about it directly in his wallet and he receives a “request of transfer” of his EHR (Electronic Health Records) from the Hospital he booked an appointment with via EPNS, which he approves by signing it with his SSI credentials and approves the doctor who he is meeting with to have access to his medical history and prescriptions. He takes this moment to even acknowledge the simplicity and need for such use-cases of Health Records with blockchain. He remembers reading that before Blockville’s EHR blockchain innovation statistics showed that up to 1 in 5 patient records are not accurately matched even within the same health care system. As many as half of the patient records are mismatched when data is transferred between healthcare systems. He relishes and appreciates how far technology has improved especially in Blockville, no wonder he loves staying here. As Kevin is taken aback by all these thoughts, he loses track of time. An hour before his appointment is due, Kevin receives an automated decentralized notification to remind him about the booking and so he gets ready to leave for the hospital.
As Kevin reaches the hospital on time (thanks to the reminder), he meets the doctor who asks him a few questions and then asks him to run some tests. Upon testing, the reports are sent to the doctor, which are then added to Kevin’s EHR, and Kevin is notified about this. He meets the doctor again who prescribes him some medicines and drugs to be taken in a timely manner, and informs him about his condition, Kevin doesn;t have much to worry about, just a few days of antibiotics will do the trick for him and it isn’t that serious. The news was a relief to Kevin as he presumed something bad had happened to him. The doctor updates Kevin’s EHR and pushes it back into the blockchain, all the information is encrypted (even the notifications) so Kevin doesn’t have to worry about his privacy. As the information is updated Kevin receives his timely updates on notifications.
Kevin now goes to the hospital’s pharmacy to collect his medication. The pharmacist looks for the prescription order sent by the doctor via the Pharmacy Channel in EPNS. He then scans Kevin’s credentials to verify that he is giving the medications to the right person and offers Kevin to opt-in for alerts to make sure he takes the medication on time, to which Kevin agrees.
Kevin takes his drugs and is about to leave but he remembers something important. He remembers the issue of fake and fraudulent drugs in the pharmaceutical supply chain and thankfully, Blockville has a tracking mechanism in place for all the drugs in all their pharmacies, this allows anyone to check the date of manufacturing, expiry date, where it was manufactured and most of all it was verified by the supply chain blockchain, which gave more trust to Kevin. Once he buys the medication, Kevin set up reminders to remind him to take his medications on time as suggested by the pharmacist.
As he left the hospital, Kevin receives another notification, this time from his insurance company which has verified his visit and has insured his complete visit to the hospital.
Kevin heads back to where his son stays, and can now peacefully enjoy his holidays and take his medications at the right time as well!
These were just a few daily use-cases for the citizens of Blockville. With a city powered by blockchain, there is more to be explored. With the use of EPNS, the use of blockchain and Web3 has just been made easier, even for big industries like Healthcare and Insurance. The possibilities for EPNS are endless!
About Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS)
EPNS is a decentralized notification protocol that enables users (wallet addresses) to receive notifications. Using the protocol, any dApp, service or smart contract can send notifications to users in a platform-agnostic fashion (mobile, tablet, web, user wallets, etc).
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