Solution Leverages Blockchain to Enable Self-Sovereign Digital Identity for Healthcare Professionals
CLEVELAND, February 3, 2020 – Axuall and The MetroHealth System will collaborate to test digital credentials for segments of its physician staff. The pilot will use new technologies and workflows to acquire, manage, and share digital credentials via a nationwide network of practitioners, health systems, and primary source issuers.
When fully deployed, practitioners will hold an up-to-date, reusable, and verified set of digital credentials that will enable a considerably faster and more efficient privileging and payor enrollment process.
The goal will be to apply this technology to standard processes and bylaws to reduce credentialing wait times, improve accuracy, and alleviate practitioner administrative burden. Ultimately this will improve patient access to care by shortening the hiring process for health care systems, especially as delivery channels move beyond brick-and-mortar to telehealth and other innovative approaches.
The Axuall Network leverages blockchain and portable digital wallets to enable secure, real-time sharing and monitoring of credentials. The technology uses biometrics to confirm practitioner identity and protect privacy, enabling practitioners to control how and when their credentials are shared.
These new digital portfolios will include documentation of a practitioner’s education, specialty training and board certifications, licenses, sanctions or medical malpractice judgments, evaluations, work history and hospital affiliations. In short, a verified, instantly accessible professional profile that otherwise might take an employer or accreditation agency weeks or even months to assemble.
“We are thrilled to work with MetroHealth to test, refine, and perfect this technology,” said Charlie Lougheed, Axuall’s CEO. “Reducing unnecessary costs and burdens on practitioners is core to our mission of helping practitioners practice less paperwork and more medicine”.
Axuall was formed in 2018 and raised $3 million in seed capital for R&D in 2019. In December, it began a pilot with Hyr Medical and is expected to announce additional pilots in 2020 as the technology and workflows are perfected and its national network of credential issuing partners grows.
“We are excited to work together with Axuall to bring this innovation to our organization,” said Julie Jacono, MetroHealth Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. “Meeting the needs of our community requires that we reduce the barriers to deploying clinical resources across new geographies and delivery channels.”
About the MetroHealth System
The MetroHealth System is an essential health system committed to providing health care to everyone in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Advancing medical care is only part of what we do. We are driven by the relentless pursuit of healthy, thriving communities for everyone. The health system is home to Cuyahoga County’s most experienced Level I Adult Trauma Center, verified since 1992, and the only adult and pediatric burn center in the state of Ohio.
As an academic medical center, MetroHealth is committed to teaching and research. Each active staff physician holds a faculty appointment at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and its main campus hospital houses a Cleveland Metropolitan School District high school of science and health.
About Axuall, Inc.
Axuall is a digital network for verifying identity, credentials, and authenticity in real-time. We address a multibillion-dollar need to eliminate waste, prevent fraud, manage risk, and meet the demand for next-generation products and services in healthcare.
