Blockchain security healthcare specialist ConsenSys Health announced it has acquired FHIRBlocks, a specialist in secure patient data-sharing tools. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal includes the transfer of FHIRBlocks’ technological and other IP, as well as key executives and staff, business activities and relationships, to ConsenSys Health.

The acquisition will result in the integration of ConsenSys Health’s Elevated Compute platform with technology components that underpin the FHIRBlocks Consent4Health application.

The Consent4Health platform lets patients control the sharing of their personal health information (PHI), often spread across several healthcare provider-managed EHR systems.

The app leverages Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) APIs and self-sovereign identity built upon W3C verifiable credential formats.

The platform is currently available through Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace, with companion mobile wallets available for download via Apple and Google’s app stores.

Doug Bulleit, director of the FHIRBlocks Unit at ConsenSys Health and the former CEO of FHIRBlocks, told MobiHealthNews that fine-grained sharing of PHI addresses two competing and increasingly important requirements.

“It allows important data to be shared by different healthcare applications, and ensuring that patient privacy is maintained,” he said. “Put simply, the fine-grained approach ensures that the right data is provided to the right people at the right time, as directed and controlled by the patient – or by local laws."

Heather Flannery, founder and CEO of ConsenSys Health, explained that the company’s Elevated Compute platform combines blockchain, decentralized AI and trusted privacy protection for the creation of decentralized healthcare applications.

“FHIRBlocks provides the functionality required for patient privacy and data-sharing consent,” she said. “In this way, FHIRblocks accelerates time-to-market for the delivery of our Elevated Compute platform.”

She noted that blockchain provides an immutable multiparty single source of truth for patient consent to use data, as required by all applications, to ensure the latest and consistent data is available.

“Verification of patient consent provides health and life sciences, providers, and payers with legal and public indemnity,” Flannery said.

Meanwhile, decentralized AI with privacy protection provides a mechanism to perform AI processing on data relating to patients, exposing only the results of the AI models and not the underlying patient data.

“Decentralized AI defends against hacking, because data is not centralized,” she pointed out, adding the greatest challenge to more secure sharing and patient data interoperability is patient consent to monetize data, improve operations and create better medicine.

“Without consent, patients can have their bills paid, and doctors may talk to them – that is all,” she said. “Patients would like precision medicine for their body, mind and social situation. Providers and payers would like payment for maintaining patient data. Both would like to improve operations.”