



Synaptic Health Alliance - initiative to use blockchain in healthcare to reduce costly administrative redundancies
Seven companies in the healthcare sector have joined hands to explore how blockchain could help to get the most current healthcare provider information in provider directories. Federal and state laws require that health plans must maintain directories containing basic information regarding physicians and other providers.
Company
Aetna
Ascension
Human
MultiPlan
Optum
Quest Diagnostics
United Healthcare
Synaptic Health Alliance
Status
In process
Tags
- Identity
- Data Security
- Payer
- Provider
- Healthcare services




Problem statement
Need to improve data quality and reduce administrative costs tied to provider demographics. According to an estimate, the industry spends around US$2.1 billion annually in acquiring and maintaining provider data.
Approach
The alliance is planning to come up with ‘provider data exchange’ (PDX) - in which the members will be actively sharing the data with an objective of showing potential administrative cost savings while demonstrably improving provider demographic data quality and the experience of consumers.
Technical details
Blockchain enables an efficient creation of a synchronized, shared source of high-quality provider data through a decentralized, distributed ledger across a peer-to-peer network. Transactions will be recorded chronologically in a tamper-resistant manner, and updates entered by any party on their record are replicated almost immediately across all the other parties’ copies. When updates to a transaction are entered and accepted, those updates amend, rather than alter, those transactions. All transactions and updates remain visible and unchanged, providing a real-time audit trail and ensuring data integrity.
In the end of 2018, Aetna and Ascension announced plans to join the Synaptic Health Alliance’s pilot blockchain project. The roster involved in the effort now consists of Aetna, Ascension, Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and UnitedHealthcare.
Published white paper
Presented
Health IT Conference for 2019 (HIMSS19)
Presented
{"Distributed health"=>2018}
Presented
References
https://www.synaptichealthalliance.com/project
https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/aetna-joins-healthcare-blockchain-alliance-pilot-project
https://www.ethnews.com/aetna-and-ascension-join-blockchain-healthcare-tria
https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/video/blockchain-use-cases-could-show-concrete-benefits-in-2019
This use case first appeared on Chain 76 Use Cases — a review of blockchain technology implementations and deployments in the pharma and healthcare sectors.