Colorado

One of the largest retailer networks, Walmart, has recently gotten a patent for a system that will store patient’s vital medical records in a blockchain database. The information can after that be retrieved at the scene of an emergency whenever a patient is unresponsive or cannot communicate with his first responders. The data will be stored on blockchain and will be emergency-specific.

The Walmart patent has described the system under the title “Obtaining a Medical Record Stored on a Blockchain from a Wearable Device” – or something that is comprised of three critical devices. One of them is a wearable device which serves as the local storage medium for the blockchain database. The other is a biometric scanner which is used to obtain the patient’s biometric signature – and there is a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) scanner whose purpose will be to scan the wearable device. The retail giant proposes that the patent should be utilized through a wearable device in the form of a bracelet.

The patent by Walmart will be especially helpful during emergencies, where responders can use the RFID scanner – get an encrypted private and public key – and see the data of the patent to whom they are attending.

In order to decrypt the encrypted private key, a biometric feature has to be scanned – which could be the face, retina, iris or fingerprint of a patient. Once that is decrypted, the patient’s medical records can be obtained from the blockchain database.

The patent is now seen as something that can save time – and save lives. Walmart initially filed this patent application back in 2016 – but got it awarded last week on June 14th, 2018.