CONV2X CME 2023

Natalia Sofia | Web3 Advocate

Daniel Fritz | Executive Director, PharmaLedger

Disa Lee Choun | Head of Integrated Clinical and Operational Analytics, Janssen Pharmaceuticals

Anca Petre | CEO, Medrise Studio
Moderator

Description
This panel will explore the application of blockchain technology within the healthcare sector, focusing on its potential to enhance trust, transparency, and connectivity while reinforcing patient-centered control of data access. The discussion will examine the opportunities for patient empowerment and improved patient access to healthcare information through decentralized ledger technology. The panel will feature industry experts who will provide insights into current trends, challenges, and future prospects of blockchain in pharmaceuticals, emphasizing broader use cases beyond specific organizations. 

Objectives

1. Gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical industry and its potential impact on patient care and relationships with the healthcare system.
2. Explore the opportunities presented by blockchain for improving trust, transparency, and audibility in data sharing within the healthcare and medical environment.
3. Understand the significance of patient-centered control in accessing, storing, and utilizing healthcare data and how blockchain can contribute to enhancing patient empowerment.
4. Discuss the challenges and considerations associated with implementing blockchain in the pharmaceutical sector and explore strategies to overcome them while ensuring compliance with regulatory frameworks.

Jim Poteet | Sr. Director, Revenue Cycle Development, Oracle

Mike Gault | CEO, Guardtime

Dr. Anjum Khurshid | Chief Data Scientist, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Sivagnanam Suresh | Founder, Vdoc

Dr. Alex Norta | Founder, Norta Partners OÜ

Horst Treiblmaier, PhD | Head of the School of International Management, Modul University Vienna

Moderator

Panelists will discuss blockchain technology use for electronic health records, and specifically delve into the benefits that blockchain brings to EHRs, but also discuss what its pitfalls and limitations are; including presenting perspectives from academia, and examples
from practitioners, to ensure a lively discussion.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the potential applications of blockchain for electronic health records (EHRs).
• Explore the benefits and challenges of implementing blockchain for EHRs, including security, interoperability, privacy, and data integrity.
• Identify key use cases and real-world examples of blockchain implementation in healthcare and EHR management.
• Analyze the potential impact of blockchain on improving healthcare data exchange, patient consent management, and medical research.
• Discuss the regulatory and legal considerations associated with using blockchain in healthcare, such as compliance with data protection laws and standards.
• Examine the role of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) in enhancing EHR management and patient control over their health information.
• Assess the scalability and performance limitations of blockchain technology in handling large-scale healthcare data and high transaction volumes.
• Evaluate potential cost savings and efficiency gains achieved through blockchain implementation in EHRs, considering factors such as data access, auditability, and administrative overhead.
• Discuss the future prospects and challenges of integrating blockchain with existing healthcare systems, standards, and infrastructure to achieve widespread adoption and interoperability.

Wei Hu | Senior Vice President of Development, Oracle

Blockchain is a new technology that has attracted a tremendous amount of interest. However, up to now, blockchain has mainly been used to develop decentralized multi-party applications. This talk will describe Oracle’s breakthrough technology that deeply integrates blockchain into the Oracle database. Since virtually all critical data are stored in databases, this makes it possible to implement blockchain in mainstream healthcare and enterprise applications with minimal changes. We will begin by introducing the threats posed by hackers and compromised insiders. Then we will describe how in-database blockchain can protect your data against these threats. We will compare this against conventional blockchains as well as share use cases from customers who have adopted this technology.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the concepts behind crypto-security and the threats it addresses
2. Explore the challenges with adoption of blockchain
3. Learn how database-integrated blockchain can be used to protect critical data against tampering
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a database-integrated blockchain?
5. Get an understanding of the types of healthcare data that can be protected using blockchain

Kevin Yavuz | Managing Consultant Blockchain, Data & Technology Transformation, IBM

The importance of data and digitization in healthcare cannot be overstated. These advancements have the potential to revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered, leading to improved patient outcomes, enhanced efficiency, and better decision-making by healthcare providers. Blockchain technology can play a significant role in addressing the main challenges like data accessibility, privacy, interoperability and patient empowerment, ultimately transforming the healthcare ecosystem into a data-driven economy

Raja Sharif | CEO, FarmaTrust

Case Use: A potential game changer entered the arena in 2022 with a new approach to cell and gene therapy tracking, allowing more streamlined applications, payment options and opportunity to realize true manufacturing safety and trust at scale quicker for personalized medicines and regimen treatments.

Tyler Cohen Wood | Co-Founder, Dark Cryptonite

Dr. Christina Yan Zhang | CEO, The Metaverse Institute

Dr. Michael Mylrea

Brian Thornley | SVP - Supply Chain, Merck

Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes | Founder & CEO, Institute SEI

Moderator

The integration of digital twin technologies in precision health, pharma, and life sciences has gained significant attention in recent years. Digital twin technologies are expected to play a critical role in improving healthcare outcomes as we move towards the era of personalized medicine. In this panel discussion, we will explore the key drivers for the adoption of digital twin technologies, including the transition to Web 3.0, the establishment of a global interconnected health ecosystem, and the unique benefits of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and other converging frontier technologies to optimize healthcare, pharma, and life sciences.

However, the successful implementation of blockchain-powered digital twin technologies in precision health is contingent upon the adequate implementation of cyber safety measures, proactive ethics programs, data validation, data provenance, optimized supply chain management, and enhanced interoperability. Our panel discussion will highlight the significant role of blockchain-powered digital twins in revolutionizing the management, security, sharing, ownership, and monetization of health data. Our panelists will also emphasize the potential for blockchain-powered digital twins to be deployed in pharma supply chain management and new drug development in the precision health era. Our speakers will demonstrate the amplified impact on patient outcomes when blockchain capabilities are augmented with a full AI portfolio of tools during digital twin deployments in healthcare, pharma, and life sciences.

Learning Objectives
1. Understand the concept of digital twin technologies and their potential applications in precision health, pharma, and life sciences.
2. Identify the key drivers and benefits of adopting blockchain-powered digital twin technologies in the healthcare ecosystem.
3. Explore the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with blockchain-powered digital twins and its impact on optimizing healthcare outcomes.

Ahmed Abdulla | CEO, Digipharm

This session will explore the real-world impact value-based procurement and subsequent contracting, and health technology pricing in the context of value-based care. We will delve into innovative business models that are reshaping the healthcare landscape, promoting cost-effectiveness, and enhancing patient outcomes. Attendees will gain valuable insights into the evolving strategies driving value-based care and its implications for healthcare providers, payers, and patients.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the concept of value-based care and its significance in the current healthcare environment.
• Explore the real-world impact of value-based pricing on healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.
• Examine the role of value-based procurement/contracting in driving cost-effective healthcare solutions.
• Gain insights into health technology pricing models and their impact on value-based care initiatives.

Identify innovative business models that support value-based care and improve patient outcomes.

Rob van Kranenburg | CIO, Asvin

Jim St. Clair | COO & Advisor, Multiple Companies

Shaila Rana, Founder, CyberSecure

Moderator

The National Cybersecurity Strategy of 2023 emphasizes the importance of implementing zero trust architectures (ZTA). ZTA is listed as a key component in the approach to cybersecurity. The National Cybersecurity strategy emphasizes the need for agencies and organizations to adopt a ZTA to include MFA, encryption, continuous monitoring, and more. These measures are listed as being essential to protect networks, devices, data, and information systems from the plethora of cyber threats we face. Critical infrastructure has been frequently attacked and targeted by nefarious actors, especially the healthcare industry. Due to the nature of information that is hosted and interacted with in the healthcare industry, the implementation of a ZTA is all the more crucial. In the context of health care, zero trust is becoming increasingly essential because of the vast amounts of patient health information that can be highly valuable
to cyber criminals. Moreover, the rise of telemedicine, remote work, and online communications with doctors and healthcare staff leave information systems vulnerable. Thus, implementing a zero trust approach in healthcare can reduce the risk and impact of security incidents. A ZTA can improve the security posture of healthcare organizations to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of patient data. However, the implementation of a ZTA
within health care can face some hurdles. Consequently, this panel will address these challenges and remediations.

Learning Objectives

• Identify challenges and remediations associated with implementing ZTA in healthcare
• Analyze the vulnerabilities in healthcare information systems caused by the rise of telemedicine, remote work, and online communications
• Evaluate how implementation of a zero trust approach can reduce the risk and impact of security incidents in healthcare

Muthu Ramachandran, PhD | Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), India

Blockchain applications in healthcare have grown rapidly. BC in healthcare applications includes record keeping, clinical trials, medical supply chains, patient monitoring, etc where BC characteristics are needed to improve safety, privacy, and security. BC is one of the biggest disruptive technologies today. However, Porru, et al (2017) have reported it lacks processes, tools, and techniques.

Destefanis et. Al. (2018) has reported that there is a need for smart contract programming based on a disciplined approach and have reported several incidents of vulnerabilities causing freezing of more than 500K users with the loss of $150 millions of dollars. In addition, existing studies on software engineering for blockchain Dapps sought for a systematic approach (Beller and Hejderup, 2018; Destefanis et. Al. 2018; Chung L, do Prado Leite JCS 2009).

Therefore, this talk provides a systematic framework for a secure and sustainable software engineering framework for healthcare blockchain applications. S3EF-HBCA includes requirements engineering for healthcare, business process modelling for healthcare, a reference architecture for healthcare, and validation by case study and simulation with BPMN. The results show encouragement in terms of process, tools, standards, and testing.

Learning Objectives

• To understand the current trends in healthcare blockchain applications (HBCAs)
• To identify some of the key characteristics of Blockchain relevant to HBCAs
• To understand the security, sustainability, and software engineering approach in HBCAs Framework (S3EF-HBCAs)
• To understand Requirements Engineering for S3EF-HBCAs
• To acquire knowledge on Domain Classification for Blockchain Applications
• To understand Blocks-Points Effort & Complexity Estimation
• To understand Reference Architecture for Blockchain in S3EF-HBCAs
• To understand BPMN modelling & simulation using a Case Study and Evaluation of REF-ArcBC with BPMN: Electronic Health Record (EHR)
• To understand the Evaluation Techniques of BPMN simulation for Reference Architecture for S3EF-HBCAs.