Claims to have found how to use and improve on blockchain technology to aggregate and exchange large amounts of medical data

A Colorado, USA company is harnessing the software encryption technology that spawned Bitcoin and other digital currencies to grant individuals the power to own their personal health data.

BurstIQ, founded by a former U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist, claims to have figured out how to use and improve on blockchain technology to aggregate and exchange large amounts of medical data while complying with strict U.S. health-data protection laws.

The result is touted as a system of unprecedented patient control over health information and heightened opportunities for authorized use of those records for cutting-edge medical research and disease prevention. At the platform’s heart is the LifeGraph, a patient tool for proactively managing, and even profiting from, personal health data.  

"Our objective is to revolutionize access to health care data by building a person-centric platform that connects people to data for care, for health, and for life,’’ said Frank Ricotta, founder and CEO of BurstIQ. “It’s a lot more than a fancy app on your phone.”

Ricotta, who previously built intelligence and cybersecurity solutions for the U.S. Military and other government agencies, has set out to do nothing less than democratize the country’s healthcare system by enabling people to access, share and gain value from their own health information, and make it easier for companies to securely access and share the data they need to drive their business.

“We believe people should own their data, and decide who sees it, when they can see it and what they can use it for,” Ricotta said. “No industry needs this more than health care.”

Ricotta’s ideas about what is referred to as a “Health Singularity,” or person-centric care, coalesced in 2015 at 10.10.10 Health, an annual 10-day brainstorming symposium in which entrepreneurs and thought-leaders generate market-based solutions to some of the world’s most vexing problems.

Ricotta focused on the double-barrelled challenge of how to gather large amounts of data and securely move it to where it is needed while complying with HIPAA, the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that governs the security and sharing of medical data.

To address this challenge, Ricotta and the BurstIQ team sought to exploit blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, that emerged in 2008 along with Bitcoin, the most well known of all digital currencies. The BurstIQ team developed a proprietary system of blockchain and machine intelligence capability to create a secure distributed data repository that puts patients in the driver’s seat.

But, BurstIQ is not alone in their ambitious endeavor.

The Nordic island nation of Iceland, with a population at just above 334,000 citizens, embarked on an ambitious journey toward a renewed patient data framework at the turn of this century.

In 2000, Iceland sold 275,000 citizens’ genealogical records to deCODE Genetics, led by Icelandic neurologist Kari Stefansson.

This was initially heavily criticised by Icelanders. Seventeen years later, the initiative is now heralded as a marked success, domestically in Iceland, and internationally by doctors, researchers and scientists in the United States and England, for having drawn quite significant medical theories, discoveries and conclusions.

At Startup Iceland, which took place May 31-June 1 in the capital of Reykjavik, the small country announced it was proceeding with an initiative to provide a digital health record for every citizen.

Last year, BurstIQ handled 25 billion data points. The health data innovator is now in the midst of launching a public sale of its BiQ digital token. The token will be tradeable on third party digital currency exchanges, and the company will be using BiQ tokens as the digital currency that powers transactions on the BurstIQ platform. The company hopes that the BiQ token will bring together a community of people and organizations who are committed to establishing a truly universal health data marketplace.