A healthy start: First commercial use case underlines the value of cryptographically verifiable LEI for establishing digital trust
A collaboration between GLEIF and PharmaLedger is advancing the use of vLEI to support the development and adoption of blockchain-enabled solutions in healthcare. GLEIF is exploring the potential of vLEI to create digital trust for use cases in healthcare and beyond.
According to a McKinsey & Company study, the Covid-19 public health crisis accelerated digital initiatives by up to seven years. The need to live life online, both professionally and personally, in recent pandemic years has highlighted the importance of having access to global systems and platforms that are inherently trustworthy and foster collaboration and innovation among stakeholders around the world.
But trust is hard to come by in today’s digital environment. In business, online documents and remote communication are now the norm. With no single, open and universal protocol to verify the authenticity of information and data sources, businesses are on their own when it comes to deciding who and what they can and cannot trust.
And perhaps nowhere is the need for trust more acutely felt than in the global healthcare industry, an industry where people’s lives literally depend on the ability to quickly and accurately identify whether a facility is and does what it claims to do.
The current pace of digital change and the growth of the global digital economy have created an urgent need for greater security, convenience and ease of use in digital identity for organizations and the people they represent in official or functional roles. In particular, advances are needed in the areas of strong authentication, identity verification and proof of data authenticity. The pace of digital transformation sweeping the global economy requires an open, commercially neutral and global solution to the issues of security, convenience and usability that challenge the field of organizational digital identity. The vLEI is that solution. It has the potential to revolutionize secure identity management on the internet and protect the digital collaboration and transactions of organizations across all industries.
To address the need for a digital, trusted ecosystem for global healthcare stakeholders, GLEIF has partnered with PharmaLedger, a project funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
As a result of this collaboration, PharmaLedger has made the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) a critical component of a new blockchain platform for healthcare services. PharmaLedger will be one of the first service providers in the world to integrate the verifiable LEI (vLEI), GLEIF’s new digital proof of identity for organizations, into its system. The vLEI, the digital counterpart of the LEI, will be used by PharmaLedger to establish real-time digital trust between participants on its blockchain. An early use case will also be part of a trial in a cross-country, industry-wide initiative to digitize product information for patients. Here, the vLEI will be used to identify the manufacturer of the product of each pharmaceutical package insert.
This early use case demonstrates just some of the potential benefits that vLEI will bring to businesses around the world by promoting higher levels of trust.
Operational efficiency
The digital trust enabled by the vLEI benefits everyone from manufacturers to patients and, in the case of PharmaLedger, promises to vastly increase the operational efficiency of the global healthcare industry. It will also improve the digital exchange of data and documentation related to a variety of healthcare use cases, ranging from clinical drug trials to supply chain partnerships.
For example, through the PharmaLedger platform, regulators and manufacturers will be able to speed up development and approval processes and then digitally share important product information with patients. The system will also enable regulators to approve package inserts faster and more efficiently. Imagine being able to scan the packaging of a medicine with your smartphone to get the latest approved digitized package insert and be sure that the document is authentic. Innovative applications like this are only possible if all stakeholders use the same form of digital identity. The collaboration between GLEIF and PharmaLedger makes this a reality.
Greater digital trust across the global economy could optimize a wide range of use cases. From customs and border control to supply chain due diligence processes, from applying for and verifying membership of trusted networks to securing remote execution of business contracts. The possibilities are endless.
Instant onboarding
The use of vLEI also enables healthcare companies to join the PharmaLedger blockchain almost instantly and quickly partner with other companies on the blockchain. At the same time, trust in these companies is increased as they know that proof of identity has been reliably verified. Perhaps more crucially, this model allows authorized representatives of participating companies to securely and digitally authorize the exchange of sensitive, isolated information with other partners, in accordance with the rules that govern such exchanges.
As Daniel Fritz, PharmaLedger Industry Project Lead, explains, “PharmaLedger needs to identify and verify companies and their representatives so that we can be sure that the companies joining the Blockchain and the people authorizing the data exchanged are who they say they are. All blockchain-based data is immutable, of course, but now that we have the vLEI, we can also be sure that there are no fake companies coming on board and initiating transactions. It also gives participants the ability to establish trading relationships almost instantly as everyone is provided with proof of trust.”
In addition to healthcare, vLEI can streamline onboarding across many different sectors and types of organizations. Financial services and other regulated service providers will benefit greatly from using vLEI to streamline and accelerate customer and partner onboarding and ongoing transactions. And any type of trading or data exchange platform, no matter how large or small, can replicate the trusted identity foundation that will underpin the Pharmaledger model.
A new level of trust for a new era of digital identities
The collaboration between GLEIF and PharmaLedger fills an urgent and unmet need for greater security, convenience and ease of use in digital identity for healthcare organizations. But this is just the beginning.
PharmaLedger is an early example of how vLEI is transforming the enterprise identity space for the benefit of all sectors, everywhere, and new use cases are being discovered every day. As the vLEI ecosystem expands, government organizations, corporations and many other legal entities worldwide will have access to non-repudiable identification data pertaining to their legal status, ownership structure and authorized representatives in all their digital business activities, providing trusted services and open, reliable data for the unique identification of legal entities worldwide.
If you see the potential for vLEI in your industry, GLEIF welcomes and encourages open conversations to explore how vLEI identity verification can be used in future applications, services and business models.
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