Summary
- An individual’s data is stored in siloed data systems in healthcare practices making it difficult and time consuming for individuals to visit a different healthcare practice.
- With the use of verifiable credentials, an individual can own their own healthcare records and move between healthcare practices seamlessly.
- Newly certified healthcare professionals must have their qualifications manually verified before they can work in any healthcare practice. If they owned their qualifications as verifiable credentials, their credentials can be verified instantly by any healthcare practice.
Upcoming Trends In Healthcare: Verifiable Credentials
Technological innovation has been central to healthcare in these pandemic years. Innovations such as AI and robotics have helped speed up the treatment and diagnosis of a host of conditions, helping to ease the strain felt by healthcare systems across the globe.
These trends are set to continue, coupled with data management systems that improve the patient experience alongside healthcare personnel management.
One of these is the use of verifiable credentials (VC) and decentralised identities in the healthcare space.
How it works now
An individual’s data is stored in siloed data systems in healthcare practices (hospitals, doctors surgeries etc.).
When a patient is moved from one surgery to another, or to hospital, a written letter or email is sent from one healthcare practice to the other providing the patient’s details and reason for visit.
This has obvious risks involved.
Similar goes for newly certified doctors entering the healthcare space.
The healthcare practice must manually verify the credentials of the doctor by calling the educational body who issued the qualifications.
Or, they run on a trust model and believe the individual is telling the truth in their credentials.
A 2018 BBC investigation revealed a ‘staggering’ trade in fake degrees, with NHS consultants, nurses and anesthetists spending thousands on bogus documents from a ‘diploma mill’ in Pakistan.
The case led the General Medical Council (GMC) to review 3,000 doctors’ records to verify their authenticity.
It’s an ongoing problem across the globe – but one that VCs can help to resolve.
The Use of Verifiable Credentials
Verifiable credentials (VCs) are digital versions of paper-based credentials that people can carry around in a mobile wallet app and present to third parties who need them for identity verification, such as a passport or driving license.
VCs can also represent things with no physical equivalent such as ownership of a bank account.
They have the potential to enable an individual to own and control their healthcare records issued by their healthcare practices. This information sits in a digital wallet on their mobile device.
Individuals can send relevant healthcare information to new healthcare providers without the involvement of past healthcare providers who issued their records.
Allowing individuals control over their data and qualifications means a faster and more efficient onboarding process into new healthcare practices.
Newly Qualified Doctors Joining The Workforce
Being issued verifiable credentials means healthcare professionals can store their credentials in their mobile wallet. They will have control over these credentials and it can be instantly verified by a healthcare practice.
In this scenario, a doctor would create a presentation of their credentials for practices to verify their history in the healthcare field. This presentation can be instantly verified so the healthcare professional can begin work instantly.
This instantaneous issuance and verification of credentials means healthcare professionals do not have to wait months to receive the certificates, and many more months for those certificates to be manually verified by the healthcare practices.
Dock is one of the leaders in the Verifiable Credentials industry.
“We’re seeing many sectors – Healthcare, Government, Education and more – adopting Verifiable Credentials. This technology allows organisations to eliminate certificate fraud and the need for manual verification processes. And it can do that while using the highest standards for data privacy, security and integrity.” said Nick Lambert, Dock’s CEO.
Using Dock Certs, an organisation can issue secure and tamper-proof verifiable credentials to individuals within seconds.
This no-code solution to verifiable credentials allow any organization to issue tamper-proof credentials without having to integrate an API to their workflows. These credentials contain a cryptographic signature of the educational body that can be easily verified by the issuer in seconds.
They are fraud-proof and verifiable in a single click, helping to establish trust between the organisation and individual themselves.
Find out more on verifiable credentials and decentralised identity, or sign up to Dock Certs and start issuing verifiable credentials.
To find out more about how the use of verifiable credentials can benefit you and your organisation, contact the Dock team.
