LONDON (Reuters) – Two British hospitals are using blockchain technology to keep tabs on the storage and supply of temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccines, the companies behind the campaign said Tuesday, in one of the first such initiatives in the world.
Two hospitals, in central England Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick, are expanding the use of a distributed ledger, a blockchain remake, from vaccine and chemotherapy drug monitoring to surveillance on refrigerators storing COVID-19 vaccines.
The tech will strengthen record keeping and data sharing across supply chains, said Everyware, which oversees vaccines and other treatments for the British National Health Service (NHS), and Texas Hedera-based ledger, which is owned by companies including Google Alphabet and IBM, in a statement.
Logical barriers pose a major threat to the rapid circulation of COVID-19 vaccines but have led to a successful business for companies selling technology for monitoring loads from factory freezer to arm blows.
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech bullets, for example, need to be transported and stored at very cold temperatures or on dry ice, and can only survive at normal fridge temperatures for up to five days.
Other vaccines, such as Moderna Inc, do not require such cold storage and are therefore easier to deliver.
“We can truly validate the data we collect from each device,” Tom Screen of Everyware said in an interview. “We make sure the source has accurate data, and after that we can confirm that it has never been changed, it has not been disturbed. ”
Companies from finance to commodities have invested millions of dollars to develop a blockchain, a digital ledger that allows data to be recorded securely and in real time, in hopes of radical cost cuts and efficiency gains.
The results have been mixed, however, with very few projects achieving the revolutionary impact shown by supporters.
Everyware’s Screen said that while it would be possible to monitor the vaccines without a blockchain, mobile systems would run the risk of errors.
The system will “allow us to demonstrate our commitment to providing safe patient care,” Steve Clarke, manager of electro-bio medical engineering at NHS South Warwickshire, said in a statement.
Reporting by Tom Wilson; Edited by Hugh Lawson