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Despite proper health being a fundamental human right, a crisis regarding healthcare services is spreading further and further around the world. Most of the global population doesn’t have access to proper physicians and/or medical facilities, and many of those who may have access to them are not able to afford the services.
This is partially caused by the current model most healthcare system base themselves on: The Sick-Cure model, where a patient must access the provider when they become ill. This allows the providers to charge extremely high fees, due to the procedures needed when illnesses are advanced and to compensate the urgency in treatment the patient requires.
The team at HealthSapiens, lead by Karim Babay, are actively working towards creating ways to shorten the gap between patient and physician, eliminating intermediary third-parties that represent cost increases, incentivizing good practice via a feedback system, and decentralizing healthcare management. And all of this made possible by implementing blockchain as their main technology.
Ease of access for everyone
HealthSapiens main goal is to broaden the reach of current healthcare providers to more people in many different territories. Currently available in all 50 states of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, they offer a platform which classifies providers by many different factors like cost, location, experience and quality, all of these under constant feedback by their patients.
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Given that cost is a transparently managed factor, patients can choose the provider with the most reasonable cost, which can potentially lower costs across the whole platform (when possible) and making it accessible to more and more people.
This is only possible by the platform’s main feature of eliminating intermediaries. The patients contact their providers directly, acquiring the service they’re currently looking for at a fair price while having complete control and availability of their medical history (which benefits from the encrypted nature of blockchain technologies).
And taking third-parties away works in favor of the Preventive Healthcare model that HealthSapiens is encouraging: A platform where patients can log in whenever they feel like needing a service, be it slight symptoms or emergencies, and not worrying about being overcharged.
Benefits of blockchain
All of those factors are greatly benefitted by the implementation of blockchain and a common cryptocurrency: eliminates cross-border payment issues regarding currency exchange, can be purchased and traded by everyone around the world, gives the patient control over his medical history and previous results (instead of their EMRs being kept by healthcare corporations), and can tip the scales towards the consumer instead of the provider, which is HealthSapiens’ main goal.
To ensure that the service they offer is properly upkept, they generated the DOC Token, which can be acquired in different exchanges to be used within the platform by the patients, physicians, and many others.
The patient pays in DOC Tokens to access the platform’s catalog of providers, while also accessing the service of EMR consolidation. Then, they pay the physician of their preference and have the choice to have their results to be peer-reviewed. But the provider only receives 75% of the cost, the other 25% is held is given after a waiting period (to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment) or after the outcome has been reviewed by other physicians (if the patient opted for this option).
All outcomes and results are automatically updated in the patient’s EMR, and they have the chance to share their EMR with researchers and pharmaceutical companies to earn DOC Tokens via the rewards program.
Physicians can also buy and trade DOC to gain access to more than 30 patients a month, pay for seminars and earn rewards by peer-reviewing each other. Also, researchers can access the platform to acquire EMRs from patients and offer entry to events and seminars.
Breaking molds to fix great problems
HealthSapiens is a project inspired by the principles of well-doing and universality that healthcare should uphold but have been compromised by the intervention of governments and private corporations.
It’s bold to say that this initiative will permanently fix and terminate the healthcare crisis, but it’s certainly the right step towards offering high-quality health services at affordable prices for everyone.
You can find more information and register at https://healthsapiens.io