27 SSI in healthcare

Technological advances in portable medical device manufacturing have led to improved personal healthcare while at the same time remote interactions between entities have led to fragmentation. With the convergence of technology and data propelling civil society into an era of artificial intelligence, the exponential rise in machine-generated data brings with it the need for a new paradigm in connectivity. In this chapter, Paul Knowles, co-founder of The Human Colossus Foundation, and Dr. Manreet Nijjar, Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases at Barts Health NHS Trust and co-founder of Truu, explain how in an increasingly decentralized healthcare industry, trusted relationships can be maintained through self-sovereign identity (SSI) solutions.

27.1 Introduction

“Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future”

Healthcare can be summarized as provisioning what is necessary to ensure the state of being free from illness or injury. However statement does not entirely capture the broader accepted scope of modern healthcare, where an individual may not be free from illness and healthcare practitioners are called upon to manage chronic conditions and an ongoing sequelae of injury or sickness.

27.2 DIDs: universal identification of entities in the global healthcare ecosystem

27.3 Trusted relationships in healthcare

27.3.1 The case of Nina

27.3.2 Before: How it works today

27.3.3 After: how it can work with SSI

27.4 Toward a data-centric healthcare ecosystem

27.5 SSI Scorecard for Healthcare

References