“Blockchain in recent years generated plenty of hype in the federal contracting community, but technology never resulted in many agencies moving forward with the technology.”
“The distributed ledger technology, however, has seen pockets of implementation in federal health agencies. Now in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, health executives in the Defense Department are once again looking at potential use cases for blockchain.”
“Bruce Doll, the assistant vice president for technology research and Innovation at DoD’s Uniformed Services University, said Wednesday that the Military Health System should consider blockchain for everything from credentialing providers at clinics to tracking the distribution of a COVID vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed.”
“’You certainly want to be in a situation where you are able to track, whether it’s from Pfizer or Moderna, all the way to delivery to the patient, what is actually the quality of that series of steps,’ Doll said Wednesday during a virtual health IT conference hosted by Federal Computer Week.”
“By using machine learning and AI, Doll said defense health agencies could clean and evaluate its fitness for use to reduce the risk of bad data making its way into the blockchain.”
“’Right now, if you use blockchain, there’s a risk that the data introduced is bad data, and unfortunately, badly introduced into a blockchain can be bad data forever,’ he said.”
“Renewed interest in blockchain stems from a report commissioned by congressional leadership to explore the possibility of introducing blockchain into DoD. Potential applications include multi-factor authentication of individuals entering data into MHS systems…” Read the full article here.
Source: DoD taking renewed interest in blockchain amid COVID-19 pandemic – By Jory Heckman, December 2, 2020. Federal News Network.
