How can Prenetics enable users to have more control over their data using blockchain?
BSN Spartan Use Cases
The healthcare system worldwide is facing many challenges, including high costs, lack of transparency, uneven access, and inconsistent quality. Since COVID-19, things have only gotten worse. The pandemic created a significant imbalance between medical resources and healthcare needs. The influx of infected patients created challenges for allocating resources. Without insurance, people who had low incomes or were unemployed couldn’t afford hospital care. And those who can afford healthcare have no control over their data; their information is stored by third parties. The risk of hackers breaking into a centralized data storage system poses a significant threat to individual privacy.
How can we address these limitations of today’s healthcare systems? As a major global genetic testing, genomics, and precision oncology company founded in 2014, Prenetics offers decentralized testing and digital health services at points of care and at home. Focusing on a patient-first model, the company is committed to improving the relationship between people and healthcare by making it easier for people to navigate their health journey. Since 2014, Prenetics has grown from a small laboratory with 11 employees to a leading genomics and precision oncology company in the UK and Hong Kong with nine offices worldwide.
Decentralized Healthcare Solution on the BSN Spartan Network
Peter Wong, CTO of Prenetics, presented a proof of concept (POC) use case at the BSN Spartan Global Summit in September 2022. By leveraging blockchain technology on the network, Prenetics will decentralize healthcare, bringing it closer to millions of people globally.
This article will discuss Prenetics’ use case for diagnostics built on the BSN Spartan Network, an infrastructure that aims to provide non-cryptocurrency public chain services to all IT companies and individual developers.
Enabling Fast, Accurate, and Reliable Laboratory Testing Worldwide
In response to the increased global demand for COVID-19 testing after the epidemic, Prenetics launched Project Screen, a COVID-19 testing solution adopted by Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. What makes this solution so innovative?
Traditional Testing in Web2
Generally, individuals in traditional centralized healthcare systems purchase tests from third parties, such as medical firms or institutions, who send the samples to a laboratory for testing. After receiving the results, patients can present them at clinics, hospitals, and airports. All interactions and data are encrypted in a data store, which is centralized, replicated, backed up, and encrypted. Despite this, people do not have much control over their data and are unable to decide how much will be released and who will receive it. In addition, the lack of transparency puts personal information at risk, creating the potential for data abuse or breaches.
How can Prenetics make testing fast, accurate, and reliable? As part of its efforts to further strengthen customers’ data security and privacy, Prenetics is exploring a decentralized testing solution based on the BSN Spartan Network.
Decentralized Testing in Web 3
To facilitate decentralized testing in Web3, Prenetics audited and encrypted the data into the blockchain based on the BSN Spartan Network, a decentralized infrastructure that makes the data unalterable and anonymous.
In addition to encoding the proof of the data into the blockchain, patients can also store encrypted medical data off-chain. Now, activating a testing kit does not require any information from the user, making the testing process completely anonymous.
Prenetics will hash the data using blockchain technology based on the BSN Spartan Network. As a result, the data cannot be tampered with or manipulated by a single party, and the source of the data is clear. Testing data will be transferred from the laboratory to patients or wherever it’s needed. As a result, customers are free to determine how much of their data they want to share with authorities or other third parties.
Prenetics has processed more than 28 million COVID-19 tests for Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. With the pandemic and COVID-19 testing now behind us, Prenetics has been developing a new strategic focus on genomics and precision oncology and will continue to work closely with its ecosystem partners to protect the anonymity of their customers. They will accomplish this through decentralized health services and solutions that increase control and ownership of customers’ data in digital application scenarios, such as digital health passports, verifiable credentials, and authorized electronic health record (EHR) sharing.
Prenetics’ use of the BSN Spartan Network provides a powerful example of the potential of Web3 blockchain technology to create a secure, decentralized platform for digital health data and services. This technology shows significant promise for use in any industry that would benefit from decentralization and data security.
