Blockchain Leaders Disclose Key Details on Provider Data Management Project

In December, two major healthcare stakeholders—Aetna and Ascension—announced their intentions to join the Synaptic Health Alliance, a group that has set out to explore how blockchain technology could improve healthcare data quality and reduce administrative costs.

Aetna and Ascension are the latest two organizations added to the Alliance, which began in April 2018 with five prominent players—Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and UnitedHealthcare. These five companies first announced their intentions back then to specifically explore how blockchain technology could help ensure that the most current healthcare provider information is available in health plan provider directories. “Providing consumers looking for care with accurate information when they need it is essential to a high-functioning overall healthcare system,” officials said at the time.

Some of the Alliance’s key leaders will be discussing the pilot project next week at HIMSS19 in Orlando, and already, a whitepaper has been published by the group.

In a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation, Mike Jacobs, senior distinguished engineer at Optum, recalls that the different organizations involved in the Alliance were separately attending and presenting at various healthcare conferences, and it was during a lunch