21/04/2020
The current contact restrictions in Sri Lanka cannot be upheld until a vaccine for COVID-19 is ready for the market, which has major consequences on the economy and the ability for individuals to move about freely. As it is projected that this novel virus will continue to pose a threat to society for the foreseeable future, systems will have to be adapted to include more stringent controls, increased testing efforts, the tracing of infection chains, and the isolation of potentially infected individuals as well as risk groups. In the coming weeks and months, it will likely be required for individuals to demonstrate a verified status of whether they are positive for SARS-CoV-2, or not. Such requirements are expected to apply to international flights and working in critical areas. This will be even more applicable once antibody tests are established, which will serve as reliable proof of immunity to the virus.
• What is Blockchain?
“Blockchain is a distributed, decentralized, public ledger."
Blockchain, which began to emerge as a real-world tech option in 2016 and 2017, is poised to change IT in much the same way open-source software did a quarter-century ago. And in the same way that Linux took more than a decade to become a cornerstone in modern application development, Blockchain will likely take years to become a lower cost, more efficient way to share information and data between open and private business networks.
Based on a peer-to-peer (P2P) topology, blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that allows data to be stored globally on thousands of servers while letting anyone on the network see everyone else's entries in near real-time.
With a blockchain, many people can write entries into a record of information, and a community of users can control how the record of information is amended and updated. Likewise, Wikipedia entries are not the product of a single publisher. No one person controls the information. Wikipedia’s ‘master copy’ is edited on a server and all users see the new version. In the case of a blockchain, every node in the network is coming to the same conclusion, each updating the record independently, with the most popular record becoming the de-facto official record in lieu of there being a master copy.
• Defining Digital Trust
Trust is a risk judgement between different parties, and in the digital world, determining trust often boils down to proving identity (authentication) and proving permissions (authorization).
Put more simply, we want to know, "Are you who you say you are?" and "Should you be able to do what you are trying to do?" In the case of blockchain technology, private key cryptography provides a powerful ownership tool that fulfils authentication requirements. Possession of a private key is ownership. It also spares a person from having to share more personal information than they would need to for an exchange, leaving them exposed to hackers. Authentication and authorization, vital to digital transactions, are established as a result of the configuration of blockchain technology.
• Fight Against COVID-19
The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 global epidemic has brought blockchain technology into the limelight as it can play an important role in containing the spread of the virus. WHO has also recognized the potential of this technology as cases of the infection have touched overwhelming numbers in the world. WHO has also realised blockchain as the choice of technology to create a ‘COVID-19 information highway.’ Still, our focus here is primarily on the role of blockchain in the medical sector.
As individuals travel across borders, medical facilities need immutable, trustworthy medical data quickly and electronically. A critical requirement to contain coronavirus is to track any individual having tested positive and to track the health of anyone who has come in contact with that individual, even if those encounters were across borders.
Thus blockchain could act as a database globally, where the information can be accessed by medical facilities anywhere, although there are also warnings against potential cases of misinformation. Blockchain can allow medical facilities to access the data on the persons tested, the test results, and kits on a real-time basis to identify and curtail false information.
The technology should also be used to ‘validate quality medical advice’ and recognize sources of misinformation as these can have serious effects during such crises. Currently, social media has caused several myths, conspiracies and other ill-represented facts to spread like wildfire. The blockchain can serve as a means to verify quality advice that the public should follow, versus false claims that the public should disregard.
• Telemedicine
It is the remote use of telecommunications to deliver care, like trading the typical doctor’s appointment for a private, secure video call with a medical professional. (e.g., ODoc, E-Channeling and My Doctor Mobile Applications) Blockchain already works on an immutable ledger, where technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and multiparty computation can add a degree of privacy to this ledger. The data needs to be provided to the healthcare sector while also protecting it from any breaches. As telemedicine can help in cutting costs, both for the patient and the healthcare providers by utilising blockchain solutions.
• Strategic Sourcing
Multi-million dollar contracts that usually take months to negotiate are being inked within hours. However, one of the key bottlenecks has been the lack of trust between demand, supply and the financing mechanism. Governments around the world are battling to overcome legacy procurement systems that cannot move at the pace that this crisis demands. This means countries around the world are missing out on supplies because they cannot get financial mechanisms in place on time (which should take hours, rather than weeks).
- Product Requirements: Standards vary across health systems and countries, creating confusion for what each factory should be producing.
- Supplier Credibility: There is uncertainty over which suppliers can produce equipment to the right quality, at the right production volume, at the right time.
- Financial Payments: Factories and freight companies are requiring financial payments be made upfront as their workers slowly come back online, and they themselves are trying to prioritize credible purchase requests.
- Customs Certifications: Customs certifications need to be promptly validated to allow rapid transportation of equipment internationally, given that medical equipment is highly regulated.
- Transportation Tracking: Transport options need to be validated to ensure the right shipments can move from factories to airports to distribution centers to health centers around the world, under the right conditions (e.g., temperature control for pharmaceutical products).
Traditional tools such as excel sheets and google forms are currently being used to govern supplies. With legal contracts being uncertain and the inability of individuals to fly to verify factories’ capacity, a breakdown of trust in trade finance and letters of credit as a traditional payment mechanism can be observed.
Lack of trust is the biggest bottleneck preventing this market from ramping up quicker, and speed is of the essence in the next few weeks.
• 5 Ways Blockchain can help
1. Product requirements: provide a mechanism for health systems to continually update factories with the latest product requirements and specifications, almost like a production auction.
2. Supplier credibility: provide a way for health systems to credibly assess which factories have high-quality control, and can meet the specifications and production volumes needed.
3. Financial Payments: act as a trade finance mechanism to ensure upfront blockchain-backed payments to factories that are then released as working capital upon pre-agreed production milestones and as supplies move to the next step of the supply chain.
4. Customs certifications: Blockchain-based customs certifications have been used to regulate the export of many products from wildlife trade to pharmaceuticals, and can be applied here.
5. Transportation tracking: supplies need to be securely tracked around the world to ensure transparency in the supply chain, which can occur with blockchain-based provenance tracking.
Pick the biggest retailer, the biggest hospital, or the biggest medical supplier that you know — none of them or their supply chain is apparently big enough right now to help the situation.
We need to connect systems. We need to share data with a sustainable governance.
