Engineers in Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems will collaborate with health care company Solaster to implement blockchain technology.
The partners will create open-source tools to facilitate the safe, secure exchange of health care data, launching a production-ready platform based on Health Level Seven International’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (HL7FHIR) universal health data standard.
The new platform, called GO-70, will be released on GOChain, an open-source blockchain platform. The GO-70 open-source tools will be useable on other compatible blockchains.
Jules White, associate professor of computer science, and Douglas C. Schmidt, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering and associate provost for Research Development and Technologies, and Solaster Chief Technology Officer Chris Downs will lead the collaboration.
“Understanding the performance, security and maintainability of different blockchain architectures is critical to paving the way for robust health care blockchain applications,” White said. “Our findings will help answer many of these fundamental questions in the effort to turn research into successful practice for the health care domain.”
“We see a familiar progression toward siloed, incompatible data as health applications are developed on various blockchain platforms. Establishing a standard data architecture is absolutely essential for widespread adoption of distributed ledger technology in health care,” said Solaster CEO Stuart Lackey.
“With its commitment to blockchain research across industries including health care, coupled with the opportunity for Chris, Jules and Doug to work together, Vanderbilt’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems is the ideal partner for this important initiative,” Lackey said.
In recent years, Vanderbilt has been at the forefront of blockchain research, exploring multiple applications for distributed ledger technologies. The engineering school’s efforts include collaborations with a number of industry partners around applications ranging from health care data exchange to manufacturing security and electrical power grids for renewable energy courses. The new partnership provides an opportunity to use Vanderbilt research to solve both incremental and long-term health care challenges.
Contact: Brenda Ellis, (615) 343-6314
brenda.ellis@vanderbilt.edu