Blockchain pushes healthcare digital ID applications further in India, South Korea

India’s National Health Authority has selected Life Clips’ subsidiary Belfrics to issue roughly one million Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) digital IDs by the end of June 2023 in the form of its Belshare wallet app. The Ayushman Bharat Mission is expected to be the world’s largest healthcare infrastructure.

The move will reportedly establish a solid and trusted digital identity that healthcare providers and payers across the country will accept.

“Patient record management, patient registration, patient ID, and healthcare profession certificate can be stored in the Belshare wallet, which is built on a decentralized network,” explains Belfrics director Vazeem Jadeer.

“Post-Covid, there has been a significant shift towards digital healthcare, and we believe the Belshare solution will accelerate the digital adoption for the nation.”

Through the new blockchain technology, Belfrics intends to build a solution where health data is stored and interoperated seamlessly through user-consented architecture.

According to Robert Grinberg, CEO of Life Clips, blockchain can also improve the efficiency and time spent transferring patient records from one facility to another, as well as increase the safety of the patients by reducing the duplication of clinical interventions.

“ABHA IDs, which will unify the entire Indian health ecosystem, is an excellent initiative by the Indian government to access and share health records digitally with the hospitals, clinics, and insurance providers across the nation,” Grinberg says.

“Belfrics intends to complete the M2 and M3 (Milestones 2 and 3) within the next three to six months. This is a tremendous opportunity for our Belfrics subsidiary and a tremendous vote of confidence for its revolutionary KYC-based Belrium blockchain.”

The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission launched in Septebmer 2021 and soon proved controversial as the Aadhaar accounts of many were linked to it without their consent when they came forward for COVID-19 vaccinations. Within two months, 140 million were registered, 96 percent of whom had linked to their Aadhaar national biometric ID.

This is not the first project trying to bring blockchain and digital ID technologies together in India. Earlier this year, 14 Indian researchers proposed a similar project.

South Korean firm launches blockchain-powered digital ID

South Korea-based digital transformation (DX) company and member of the Decentralized Identity (DID) Alliance Korea, LG CNS, an IT services subsidiary of LG, launched its DDIDID mobile ID service with blockchain technology.

Spotted by The Korea Times, the new digital ID aims to replace existing plastic ID cards, initially for employees, enabling them to pay for beverages at the company’s coffee shop and to enter the company’s cafeteria.

LG CNS’s digital ID reportedly relies on blockchain-based digital distributed identity verification (DID) technology to enable individual employees to decide what data to share via their mobile devices.

“We will expand DDIDID to a blockchain-based digital identity verification program to provide a variety of services that increase people’s convenience while guaranteeing individuals the authority to manage and utilize their personal data,” an LG CNS official said, as quoted by The Korea Times.

Article Topics

blockchain  |  decentralized ID  |  digital ID  |  digital wallets  |  healthcare  |  patient identification