Better healthcare through better data

The team at Acoer are on a mission to revolutionize how health data is managed, shared, and utilized. To do this, they are laser focused on solving some of the fundamental issues that are negatively impacting the flow of data in the healthcare system, such as opaque data, data silos, and lack of interoperability. All in an effort to make health data more connected, usable, secure, and authentic.

At the heart of this is the belief that unlocking the potential of health data can lead to massive improvements in patient outcomes, medical research, and overall efficiency and cost of the healthcare system. Having witnessed this challenge first-hand during his tenure as the chief software architect at the CDC, Jim Nasr and his team recognized the urgent need for change.

Per Mr. Nasr, “when health data is connected, transparent, and accessible to authorized stakeholders, we can enable more informed decision-making, foster collaborative innovation, and ultimately save countless lives.”

Acoer's vision is to create a more transparent, trustworthy, and collaborative healthcare data ecosystem by leveraging web3 technologies such as distributed ledgers in order to create a more patient-centric healthcare data ecosystem, built on a foundation of trust, transparency, and collaboration.

Meeting health data challenges head on

As mentioned, Acoer has zeroed in on several critical challenges that are standing in the way of better management and utilization of health data. One of the biggest issues is called "data opacity", which is the lack of transparency or accessibility of patient data between different systems. This leads to poor engagement between patients and healthcare providers and also creates an opportunity for medical errors to be made without this complete picture of the patient. Data opacity also contributes to inefficiencies and duplication of efforts – which are incredibly expensive and wasteful. To address this challenge, Acoer has developed what they describe as a Cryptographic Data Mesh. This data mesh is unique in that it enables federated search across an array of decentralized health data sources while ensuring data authenticity and most importantly - privacy.

Acoer is able to do this by taking advantage of cryptographic proofing techniques to ensure data integrity, no matter where it is coming from. Each data transaction is cryptographically signed and recorded on a distributed ledger, in this case the Hedera public ledger, creating an immutable and auditable trail. This enables the verification of data provenance and ensures that the data being accessed and analyzed is genuine and has not been tampered with. By leveraging the Hedera DLT, Acoer is able to offer a secure, tamper-proof, and transparent infrastructure for health data management through their data mesh.

Another significant challenge includes the sheer number of data silos that exist in the healthcare data ecosystem and the lack of interoperability between healthcare systems themselves. This fragmentation of data completely hamstrings the ability to get a comprehensive view of a patient's health, leading to poor decision-making and treatment outcomes. Acoer tackles this issue with its broader ecosystem platform, which enables the integration and seamless exchange of data between different healthcare systems, promoting a more connected and collaborative ecosystem. The platform provides a unified framework for integrating and connecting different data sources, such as electronic health records (EHRs), research databases, IoT devices, and more.

The Acoer platform leverages the Hedera DLT to create a decentralized and secure infrastructure for data sharing and collaboration. By utilizing the distributed nature of the Hedera network, Acoer ensures that data remains decentralized while maintaining its integrity and authenticity. This decentralized approach eliminates the need for a central authority or intermediary, reducing the risk of data breaches and promoting trust among participants.

The platform also provides a suite of tools and APIs for developers to build applications and services on top of the Acoer Platform. By offering a secure and interoperable foundation, Acoer helps incentivize and support the creation of solutions that can be leveraged by the broader healthcare community. This open and collaborative approach fosters innovation and accelerates the development of new technologies and treatments that can benefit patients and healthcare providers alike.

In addition to breaking down data silos and enabling interoperability, the Acoer platform also prioritizes data privacy and security. By taking advantage of the advanced privacy features of the Hedera DLT, such as zero-knowledge proofs, Acoer ensures that sensitive health data remains protected while still allowing for secure data sharing and analysis. This enables compliance with stringent privacy regulations, such as HIPAA, while promoting trust and confidence among participants in the ecosystem.

Why Hedera?

Acoer chose to work with Hedera thanks to its unique set of features and capabilities that perfectly align with Acoer's mission to revolutionize the healthcare industry. The Hedera network provides a secure, fast, and cost-effective platform for building decentralized applications, making it an ideal choice for Acoer's innovative solutions.

Hedera's exceptional performance, scalability, and robust security features were critical to the team at Acoer and helped guide their decision. The Hedera’s consensus algorithm enables transaction speeds of over 10,000 per second and almost instant finality, which are crucial to helping Acoer ensure real-time access to and sharing of health data. Also, as mentioned, Hedera's advanced cryptographic techniques, such as asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT), ensure data integrity and immutability, protecting sensitive health information, which was a mandatory requirement for Acoer.

Acoer strongly values Hedera's commitment to decentralization and how this extends to their governance structure. The network being governed by a council of leading organizations, aligns with Acoer's vision of creating a transparent and trustworthy ecosystem for health data management.

The fact that the network is not controlled by any single entity but instead governed by a council of highly reputable organizations from various industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, and academia gave the team at Acoer the confidence that the network would continue to evolve to support the unique needs of the healthcare industry.

"Acoer chose to partner with Hedera because of its unparalleled performance, security, and scalability. Hedera's technology, combined with its commitment to decentralization and brilliant governance model, aligns perfectly with our mission to create a transparent, trustworthy, and patient-centric ecosystem for health data management”, says Mr. Nasr.

Acoer also takes advantage of several the Hedera network services, including the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS), which is used for creating tamper-proof and auditable logs of data transactions in the Cryptographic Data Mesh. The Hedera SDK and Smart Contract Service (HSCS) have allowed for the Acoer team to automate complex data sharing workflows inherent in the healthcare data ecosystem and enforce access controls that are needed to satisfy even the strictest regulatory and privacy requirements.

By leveraging the Hedera network and its services, Acoer delivers a highly secure, scalable, and interoperable platform for health data management. This strategic partnership has helped to provide Acoer with a solid foundation to build trust, drive innovation, and create meaningful change in how data is managed in healthcare.

What does the Future look like for Acoer?

Acoer's roadmap is focused on expanding its impact in the healthcare industry and driving the adoption of their platform to help improve patient outcomes. To that end, Acoer has partnered with leading research organizations as well as The Cancer Platform, to create a full, end-to-end reference architecture to help drive forward cancer research.

By providing this reference architecture and leveraging AI models trained on the data that is accessed by this project, the team at Acoer believe the opportunity is there to help develop innovative treatment approaches. Through this collaboration with these organizations and healthcare providers, Acoer aims to unlock new insights and accelerate the discovery of life-saving therapies.

Another key aspect of Acoer's roadmap is the open-sourcing of its Cryptographic Data Mesh and associated tooling. By making these technologies accessible to the wider healthcare community, Acoer seeks to foster innovation and collaboration, enabling developers and researchers to build on top of its foundation and create novel solutions that address pressing healthcare challenges.

Looking ahead, Acoer will continue to enhance its offerings, integrating new data sources, advanced analytics, and AI capabilities to provide even more comprehensive and actionable insights for healthcare stakeholders.

Acoer envisions a future where its platform becomes a standard for secure, interoperable, and patient-centric health data management, and Hedera is proud to support their continued success.