The Finland-based multinational corporate Nokia has signed an alliance with the OP Financial Group to use blockchain technology to establish more trust in managing healthcare data. The latter is a prominent financial company in the country. The pilot project announced by Nokia will involve 100 people initially, with the goal to provide individuals better control over their personal health data.

Why Blockchain?

Blockchain technology allows people to regulate who all can access their individual health data. Unlike centralized services such as Dropbox, Google or Facebook, the blockchain ledger is handled by parties that have competing interests. According to Nokia, any data shared by the user is encrypted and can be accessed only by the authorized parties. The data owner will have the option to enter the proof of the data’s authenticity.

For example, a user can share their health data through a fitness wearable, which will be recorded using the healthcare mobile application. Each activity is stored as a private record on blockchain, and the user can determine who will be able to view the data. The OP Financial Group in collaboration with Nokia will organize rewards for the users based on their progress towards the fitness goals.

The Advantages

Nokia’s pilot project offers more scope to build novel incentive models in healthcare such as smart health insurance. This will support the promotion of healthy lifestyle initiatives. Additionally, the users will gain more trustworthy and reliable health advice from the credible sources. The data will be extracted only by the approved health experts to generate useful insights. This prevents the unnecessary dissemination of data.

We can hope that Nokia’s collaboration with OP Financial Group will lead to a blockchain-led digital health ecosystem that will benefit more people across the globe in the future.

Related read: How IoT is revolutionizing the Healthcare industry