Founded by scientists such as Harvard Prof. George Church, Shivom, a project that developed the world’s first blockchain-powered genomics marketplace, is rebranding as the HLTH.network. This rebranding move is the first of several steps which also includes the release an all-new and inclusive ecosystem around their existing solutions to create the world’s first base layer protocol for global healthcare data.
While successfully building the technological framework to make a fairer, more efficient, and tokenized healthcare a reality, the Shivom team recognized that traditionally not only sharing genetic data is inadequate, but the whole digital health industry had inefficiencies. These problems ranged from siloed data, data vulnerabilities, and missing interoperability, to excluding the patients from most processes.
The global healthcare industry is worth over more than $10 trillion and the data industry is estimated to be north of $4 trillion. However, there are many problems in the healthcare data industry. Data is often misused or sold without consent. Because of the individualistic nature of countries and corporations, it is difficult to transfer and share information between different entities. Data is stored and utilized in many ways, making interoperability impossible. Information becomes fragmented and stuck. If the data does manage to cross the border, it can be hard to verify its authenticity.
“Our healthcare systems are broken. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a global system that is structurally incapable of dealing with complex problems, leaving many patients behind,” said Dr. Axel Schumacher, co-founder and CEO of the HLTH.network. “Adding the ‘Network’ in our name reflects our goals and values. Although we built the technological ‘nucleus’ of a larger health infrastructure that supports data sharing and medical services in all their forms, fixing our healthcare systems is a combined effort that needs the participation of innovators, patients, and entrepreneurs from all around the world. The name HLTH Network more clearly reflects this.”
HLTH.network is expanding. The organization is now offering numerous genomic and healthcare-oriented marketplaces including data analytics, e-commerce, AI methods, and precision medicine, to NFTs. The new solutions will integrate into the current genomic analysis pipeline HLTH.network currently offers.
The rebrand also comes with the announcement of Phase II of building a global tokenized healthcare ecosystem, where the HLTH.network is broadening its scope beyond genomic data. New additions to the ecosystem are specifically designed not just to optimize and backward integrate the current solutions, but also to tackle the entire $10 trillion healthcare vertical.
Ultimately, the HLTH.network’s objective is to empower the individual. By establishing a global health database to protect patients and their information, the network facilitates open and fast data transfer across borders and jurisdictions. The blockchain is an integral part of this endeavor, and the HLTH.networks aims at bringing all blockchain efforts and healthcare tokens under one umbrella. Doing so avoids redundancies and fragmentation of the digital healthcare field, enables people and organizations to tokenize healthcare, and makes it cheaper, faster, fairer, and more efficient, the company hopes.