Blockchain technology’s immense potential, while well-documented, continues to get lost in the hype surrounding the increasing value of cryptocurrencies and the oft-astronomical raises of initial coin offerings (ICOs). 

Though it has ushered in one the most disruptive technologies in decades, the distributed ledger movement remains in its infancy stage, relative to its potential application and scalability.

The healthcare sector, however, is one area where robust conversations about distributed technology applications are occurring at an accelerated pace. Now, a fast-moving startup firm known as TrustedHealth is blazing a new path toward securely digitizing and decentralizing the way patients seek treatment for specific conditions.

TrustedHealth is a blockchain-centric, patient-led and doctor-guided cooperative focused on combating life-threatening diseases. The goal of this project is to identify the best methods for ensuring improved health outcomes for patients throughout the world. 

Previously, the team behind TrustedHealth created Trustedoctor to assist patients and their families in their battles against life-threatening diseases. Now, TrustedHealth is bringing this successful model onto a blockchain to empower patients, helping them tap into expertise from across the globe in a decentralized way. The long-term goal is to unify and align healthcare experiences while supporting better medical record-sharing data security within the field.

Trustedoctor was presented to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 28, 2018, spawning discussions about how it could be utilized in furthering WHO’s mission. Since then, Trustedoctor and TrustedHealth have sought to encourage other organizations to use the virtual platform as the go-to, standardized portal for specialized medicine.

“The way we treat disease is much more specialized than it used to be,” said Philippe Schucht, the chief medical officer of TrustedHealth. “For instance, a patient isn’t diagnosed with general brain cancer, but with a specific subset of the disease that requires a specific treatment plan. The issue is that most people aren’t allowed easy access to the doctors specializing in this specific condition and it’s resulting in climbing misdiagnosis rates. Through TrustedHealth, we’re bringing the world’s expertise onto one network, making it highly accessible and secure.” 

Trustedoctor was formed after its founder, Greg Jarząbek, lost his mother to pancreatic cancer. He trekked throughout the world in an attempt to identify the best treatment for her. Through this experience, he realized the immensely scattered ecosystem that exists for the world’s leading physician specialists.  

The Trustedoctor network has already on boarded more than 80 world-leading doctor specialists, available to more than 250 patients from 35 countries around the world. Also, one of the Trustedoctor tools, Doctorlink, is being used in more than 50 hospitals around the world, according to TrustedHealth.

Today, the vision for connecting the entire health ecosystem is through TrustedHealth’s blockchain technology. Spanning beyond virtual consultations and second opinions, the holistic healthcare process of 

TrustedHealth is digital and decentralized, including initial consultation, medical records and insurance, lab orders, treatment assignments, travel options and payment. 

The company’s worldwide list of advisory board members includes technologists and medical experts from Japan, the U.K., the U.S., Switzerland, Slovenia and Russia.

TrustedHealth’s ICO commences on March 20, 2018, at 12:00 CET and its crowdsale begins on March 27, 2018 (if the hardcap is not reached in the presale). Whitelisting is now open. With a limited supply of the TrustedHealth tokens, contribution above 50 ETH will secure each investor a “HealthPass” — granting access to health insurance stored on an Ethereum-based wallet.

A HealthPass-registered Ethereum address allows a health consumer to access premium services within TrustedHealth’s network of service providers. From there, the company does the work to identify a proper physician match for each individual person.

Note: Trading and investing in digital assets is speculative and can be high-risk. Based on the shifting business and regulatory environment of such a new industry, this content should not be considered investment or legal advice.