Dr. Craig Wright on how a single ledger can ‘radically change’ healthcare industry

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The turnout to the CoinGeek London conference held on February 20-21 was overwhelming. From developer participation to attendance, this latest installment in the continuing series of Bitcoin SV (BSV) events was a huge success. CoinGeek’s Johanna Botta met up with Bitcoin creator and nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig Wright to get his take on the conference, and what he sees as the biggest achievements announced at the event. 

Undoubtedly, the fact that EHR Data Inc. is embracing BSV to create a single ledger for the healthcare records industry is huge. Going forward, the medical records company, which is a subsidiary of the National Health Coalition (NHC), will migrate all NHC data to the blockchain in a joint effort with nChain. The collaborative effort is a statement of how valuable the blockchain is to proper data management and storage. 

Wright is proud of this monumental achievement, as it will help bring about less black-market drug sales and work to prevent “doctor shopping.” By bringing all patient data under one system, physicians, and the healthcare industry as a whole, will have one single point from which to source information, providing greater control and transparency starting with the pharmaceutical companies and continuing all the way to the end users. 

This facilitates the sharing of information and can ultimately lead to less addiction and illegal sales of drugs, such as opiates. Wright had been working on systems to provide better electronic data interchanges (EDI), and this is the first time that a major healthcare company has embraced the blockchain to enable more efficient and transparent EDI. 

Going forward, Wright hopes to see more industries and organizations make the same decision that EHR has, to adopt the blockchain in their everyday operations. He understands that businesses have to be able to leave their comfort zone for this to happen, but Bitcoin, in addition to offering a viable peer-to-peer currency, enables a data solution that reduces fraud and streamlines operations, which ultimately provides the winning ingredients all businesses look for to enhance their activity. 

Wright knew that the blockchain would be able to provide this mechanism when Bitcoin was first conceived, but didn’t expect that its adoption would be as difficult as it has become. Fortunately, despite initial trepidation and confusion over what purpose blockchain truly served, businesses now better understand the concept and realize that Bitcoin was never designed to be used for illicit or underground activity, as some projects have supported. BSV enables the transparent, regulated solution that Bitcoin envisioned, and projects such as that of EHR are showing the blockchain’s true value.