Blockchain Startup to Secure 1 Million e-Health Records in Estonia

Data security startup Guardtime has announced a partnership with the Estonian eHealth Foundation that will see it deploy a blockchain-based system to secure over 1 million patient healthcare records. Under the deal, the foundation will integrate Guardtime's keyless signature infrastructure (KSI) blockchain into the foundation's Oracle database engine to provide "real-time visibility" into the state of patient records.

Estonia has become notable for its e-government system, which was established in 1997. This is enabled by a chip-embedded ID card that gives the nation's citizens access to over 1,000 e-government services, such as filing taxes and voting, almost instantly and via just one website. Also included in the system are electronic patient records, which the rollout of Guardtime's technology is aimed to protect with an "independent forensic-quality audit trail". The company claims this will make it impossible to alter the information, illicitly or otherwise, without it being noticed.

A spokesperson for the company told CoinDesk:

"In guarding sensitive records, the danger is that they could be altered, deleted, improperly changed or updated, affected by hackers, malware, system issues, etc. The blockchain in this case can prove the integrity of the record, and everything that has happened to it over time."...