The threat of COVID-19 has not abated for many countries more than a year after its outbreak. Even now, India is battling a deadly second wave. With vaccinations protecting people against the virus’ fatal symptoms, it is now crucial for citizens to be vaccinated. However, keeping track of who has been vaccinated and the two doses of the vaccine injected within the specified window of time with just vaccination certificates is proving to be more difficult, especially with the healthcare system exhausted with dealing with he virus. What if a person loses their certificates, or what if a person misses the second dose. Furthermore, getting a clear count of who has been vaccinated in real time is impossible.
These concerns can all be managed with vaccine verification application VXpass, which has been built on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. With with this type of healthcare on blockchain, individuals, providers and manufacturers can easily monitor COVID-19 vaccinations. All one has to do is install the application on their mobile phones or laptops, enter their personal information, and VXpass will do the rest.
“On arrival, they’ll show up at the nursing station or go to the exam room or drive through the line and provide their ID to the practitioner or provider simply by scanning just [the QR code]. The provider application has gone and checked the blockchain and sees that for this patient, even though the data was created by another medical practitioner, we can verify that they’ve received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine [for example] and they’re within the window of receiving the second vaccine,” VXpass Founder Zachary Weiner said while demonstrating how the app works.
The protocol will be completed once the second dose has been administered, and providers and manufacturers are updated in real time. Instead of a paper or booklet, the user now has a digital copy of their vaccination record saved on the blockchain. This means that the data will not be deleted as long as it is needed. Patients can present this to anyone who needs to authenticate or verify the completion of their vaccination. This is because VXpass allows user to own their data—hospitals, vaccine centres and other institutions do not hold and control their data.
“In historical practice, the reason there’s no US law about that in historical practice, it was the collector of data—your doctor, the pharmacy, your lab, your hospital—that collects the data, and then, they claim ownership of the data they collect about you. And [VXpass is} trying to help educate the world about how maybe with the advent of blockchain technology, we need to change that and allow patients to actually have ownership rights to their own data.” Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen explained,” Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of Bitcoin Association, a Switzerland-based organization promoting the development on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, said during one of the most recent BSV Virtual Meetups with Weiner.
Giving back data ownership to individuals is an event that needs to happen in the future, and Bitcoin SV is committed to this advocacy. Through various platforms and applications of healthcare on blockchain, empowering people to gain control of their data can be achieved. If this happens, patients can even monetize their data whenever they allow institutions to access their medical history for scientific research and development. Individuals need to benefit from their own data, not only hospitals and other institutions can collate patient data and make use of them. This is the real value of data.