The upcoming "Blockchain in Healthcare Code-A-Thon," hosted in Washington by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the Chamber of Digital Commerce, aims to find ways to deploy the emerging technology in healthcare to solve issues such as identity management, data aggregation and more.

Held March 14 to 15 in collaboration with the DC Blockchain Summit 2017, the event will see  developers working on distributed-ledger-based applications that can offer new approaches to key operational challenges across healthcare such as interoperability to security.

Code-A-Thon participants will use open source distributed ledger technology and health-specific standards to focus on three tracks: using blockchain to support the identity management requirements of the APIs that enable provider-to-provider and provider-to-patient exchanges, metadata tagging and policy expression for managing access to health information and data aggregation and linkage for sharing patient data.

"The Code-A-Thon is a great opportunity to follow up on the blockchain in health care challenge we administered, which received over 70 whitepapers, and the subsequent workshop we co-sponsored with our colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology," said Steve Posnack, ONC's Director of the Office of Standards and Technology.

[Also: ONC unveils winners of Blockchain health IT challenge]

"ONC's participation speaks volumes about the serious, long-term potential application of blockchain to the healthcare sector," said Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce. "This competition will highlight the wide-reaching benefits of blockchain and distributed ledger solutions, while creating new opportunities for innovation in healthcare."

The "Blockchain in Healthcare Code-A-Thon" is open to the public and will take at Georgetown University. Up to 12 winners will be announced, with up to $15,000 awarded to the challenge winners.

The event is limited to the first 100 contestants and 50 attendees who register. Registration ends on March 7. Learn more here. 

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com

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