The Illinois Blockchain Initiative, a program formed back in November 2016 recently announced its first partnership with Nashville-based blockchain healthcare company Hashed Health. The pilot program will initially explore opportunities to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the medical credentialing process in Illinois. The concept will leverage a blockchain-based registry to streamline the sharing of medical credential data and smart contracts to automate workflow related to multistate and interstate licensure.
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) Secretary Bryan Schneider, commented:
“IDFPR’s active participation in efforts such as the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact and the Illinois Competitiveness Council shows our commitment to improving license portability for healthcare professionals. In the short-term, we anticipate this pilot will show how distributed ledger technology can help reduce the complexity of interstate licensing processes in Illinois.”
“In the long-term, we see this as a secure, privacy-enhancing way in which state licensure boards can efficiently manage credentialing at a national scale, while also presenting health payers and provider networks a ‘single source-of-truth’ to improve the veracity of provider directories and claims adjudication processes.”
Jennifer O’Rourke, Blockchain Business Liaison for the Illinois Blockchain Initiative said:
“Illinois is committed to moving beyond the much-discussed promise of distributed ledger technologies. With this pilot, we plan to bring tangible solutions that solve real problems. We are excited to explore how distributed ledger technology can improve current bottlenecks in the medical licensing process and hope to share our learnings with other state boards and entities interested in collaborating on this project going forward.”
The blockchain framework utilized allows providers to be identified in a secure, verifiable and scalable way. Credentialing bodies can reliably view and eventually attest to certifications, providers can verify and maintain a single record, and all interacting bodies can trust that the central record is valid, authenticated, and unique.
John Bass CEO of Hashed Health said:
“Blockchain and distributed ledger technology have the potential to revolutionize the delivery of public and private services, redefine the relationship between government and the citizen in terms of data transparency and trust, and make a leading contribution to Illinois’ efforts towards digital transformation. As partners, Hashed Health and the State of Illinois have embarked on a journey to create blockchain healthcare solutions that demonstrate the value of this new technology and form the foundation of future related solutions.”
