Synaptic Health Alliance provider data blockchain initiative expands

Photo: Weiquan Lin/Getty Images

Healthcare tech consortium Synaptic Health Alliance has announced the addition of its newest member, ProCredEx, a blockchain health credentialing company.
 
The Alliance also announced the expansion of its provider data management initiative to Colorado, Florida, Michigan and New York.
 
Started in Texas in 2018 by Aetna, Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics and UnitedHealth Group, the Alliance aims to solve healthcare industry challenges through blockchain technology.

With the addition of ProCredEx, the Alliance now has 11 members, having also added Centene, Cognizant, CorVel, Prime Health Service and Providence.

Blockchain functions as a secure, traceable and nearly instant way to synchronize information across multiple sources.

Through the "provider data exchange" pilot project the Alliance set up, which is enabled by blockchain technology, its members were able to find and update certain demographic inaccuracies in health plan provider directories faster than they would on their own, according to the Alliance.

ProCredEx will serve as a conduit for additional organizations to manage provider directories to both contribute and subscribe to the Alliance's provider data updates.

Kyle Culver, co-founder of the Synaptic Health Alliance, told Healthcare Finance News that Synaptic has so far focused on the provider directory, while ProCredEx is looking at ensuring doctors are credentialed and licensed to deliver certain services.

"They have directory data as well, but they bring another set of skills and have been in the blockchain space for a while," he said.
 
WHY THIS MATTERS
 
Culver pointed out the profusion of data silos across healthcare is a major challenge to improving the exchange of data on a large scale.
 
"What blockchain can do is enable you to share logic as well as data. which can enable a shared workflow across multiple parties," he said. "When you have these multi-party workflows, keeping track of that data and having a shared reference to kind of anchor – blockchain does a good job with that."

When considering the size and scope of healthcare and the number of companies that have data and need to be able to stitch that data together, blockchain is being seen as a solution to a more comprehensive view of patient records and medical data.
 
THE LARGER TREND
 
The pandemic has acted as an accelerant for the development and evolution of blockchain technology, allowing a level of interoperability that doesn't yet exist in any wide-scale form, easing information access and preventing the potential for fraud and waste.

Culver pointed out the four newest states included in the data management initiative have a national profile.

The addition of the four states in the data management initiative is part of a goal of a national rollout before the end of the year.

"The more states you can cover, the more you can have those efficiencies, and from there, we can better understand how we work together across geographies," Culver said. "You may have different participants who have good data in different areas."

The key is figuring out how to crowdsource and make sure the data is being shared in an optimal way.

"The efficacy of blockchain grows by network effect and the value of it is really relational to who's participating," Culver said. "The more people we have contributing data, valuable information, the better it is going to be. The faster we can get data, and the more elements we can get, the more accurate that information is going to be."

Twitter: @dropdeaded209
Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com