Category: Uncategorized

In the not-too-distant past, worker happiness seemed to fall pretty far down the priority list at most companies. Our culture celebrated the myth of busyness with little regard for how those long hours and the pressure to perform were impacting people’s well-being and sense of fulfillment.

Flash forward to today and happiness is of paramount importance. Some companies even employ Chief Happiness Officers, whose job is – you guessed it – to foster employee happiness. Their job duties range from organizing morale-boosting team events to conducting emotional check-ins with employees to implementing new happiness-oriented policies. They’re tasked with creating an environment that inspires worker loyalty and drives increased productivity.

Although some people are critical of the concept of having a dedicated happiness officer in the C-suite, few would disagree with the fact that happy workers are more productive workers. Research indicates that productivity jumps 12% among happy employees, and it drops by 10% among their less cheerful colleagues. Harvard University researcher Shawn Anchor, who wrote The Happiness Advantage, found that increased happiness changes the way our brains function. People who are more optimistic are better problem-solvers because they’re more likely to spot new opportunities and potential solutions.

Whether you hire a Chief Happiness Officer or simply integrate happiness-supporting policies into your culture, it’s clear that employee satisfaction isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s another competitive advantage for successful modern businesses.

Happiness and wellness go hand-in-hand   

What does happiness really mean from a workplace perspective? Certainly, a positive, collegial environment is more attractive than a tense, ulcer-inducing office space. However, discussions of happiness and productivity are a gateway to a broader topic: how employers can foster happiness through the right benefits and perks.

Tech startups in particular became notorious in recent years for offering flashy perks, such as foosball tables and craft beer on tap. But the novelty of having a fun office environment seems to be giving way to desires for more substantial, lifestyle benefits. Interestingly, many of the perks associated with tech startups – such as ping-pong set-ups and unlimited snacks and beer – aren’t as in-demand as more substantial benefits.

One study showed that only 12% of workers surveyed feel that employers should encourage games in the workplace, indicating that fun but superficial perks aren’t relevant to employee happiness. However, people are drawn to companies offering more creative and impactful job perks, such as pet insurance, help paying down student loan debt and covering wedding expenses, and paid time off to volunteer.

That may be in part because Millennials, who represent the largest demographic in the American workforce, are entering new stages in their lives. As they marry or co-habitat with long-term partners, buy houses, and start families, office game rooms and happy hours carry less appeal than flexible work policies, fitness incentives, and robust health insurance benefits. This age group is also adamant about finding work that fulfills and challenges them. An employer that pays you to volunteer (and pays your student loans) checks a lot of those boxes.  

The shift is likely due to a growing cultural awareness around well-being too. Celebrity business leaders such as Arianna Huffington have been leading the charge for a fundamental overhaul of how we think about productivity and work-life integration. Huffington shared her story of collapsing at her desk one evening when she was exhausted and overworked. Since then, she’s made it her mission to sound the alarm about the dangers of burnout and fatigue. Her company, Thrive Global, advises big-name businesses such as JPMorgan on enhancing productivity and improving behavioral patterns through holistic methods. The company recently raised $30 million and is now valued at $120 million, indicating the growing interest in this field.

The business case for happiness

The emphasis on more valuable perks and cultural wellness makes sense from a business perspective. We know that happy workers are more productive workers, and it’s hard to be happy when you’re stressed and exhausted. The person who pulls 12-hour days to impress her bosses but barely has time to see her family isn’t going to be chipper for very long. The stress of her job, combined with constant anxiety about student loans and guilt over not spending more time with her kids – not to mention a lifestyle that involves a lot of take-out and very little exercise – is a recipe for a breakdown, not a professional breakthrough. Physical and emotional well-being directly influence people’s moods and energy lives, which in turn impact their productivity.

Given the correlation between well-being, happiness, and productivity, it’s not surprising that the businesses atop Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2017 list offer a range of holistic benefits such as onsite childcare and fitness facilities, flexible work policies, tuition reimbursement, discounted gym membership rates, and other lifestyle-enhancing perks.

Having so many attractive options on-site likely keeps people in the office and working hard. But it also signals that it’s OK to take a few minutes to rest or refuel in healthy ways, rather than working from sun up to sundown. It’s becoming clear that the things that make us happy at work are the same that make us happy in our personal lives. Healthy habits, fulfilling work, and stability for our families leads to improved emotional states across the board.

While companies on the Fortune list have set high standards for employee benefits, you don’t have to have a multi-million-dollar budget to support workers’ happiness. A few core wellness policies can make a tremendous difference to your employees’ satisfaction and productivity.

Consulting powerhouse PwC released projections for the economic value of artificial intelligence. They found that the world’s $75 trillion Gross Domestic Product (or GDP, the measurement of the total economic output of a place) could grow 14% higher by 2030 on the back of advancements in AI. That works out to an additional $15.7 trillion in economic value. PwC projects that China will see the greatest gains, with 26% GDP growth from AI, while North America should see a 14% boost. Big picture, the biggest sector gains will be in retail, financial services, and healthcare.

It’s easy to read a ginormous figure like $15.7 trillion dollars without the size settling in mentally. So here’s some context to this projection of AI’s global impact. Using data on 2016 GDP from the World Bank, $15.7 trillion represents the total economic output of 177 different countries. Ranking the world by GDP size, with U.S. #1, China #2, and so on, $15.7 trillion equates to the output of every country below #17 on the list – from the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia all the way down to #195 Tuvalu.

Or to put it another way: By 2030, AI will create as much economic value as the current GDP of 177 countries. 

Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you. 

Here’s something to keep in mind when you’re scanning the next “Predictions for 2018” article you come across. Because whether it’s an expert in a magazine or your own company’s market forecast, it’s easy to get caught up in predictions that sound great but have a flimsy evidentiary foundation. The hazard of forecasting is that people struggle to see past their own commitment to a particular vision for the future, and end up blinded by questionable assumptions or their own cognitive biases. 

There’s plenty of data to support the notion that people are terrible forecasters—but there’s more to the story. Philip E. Tetlock is one of the leading researchers in this area of making forecasts. He notes in his book Superforecastingthat how you think matters more than what you think. He goes on to identify a number of traits that are associated with individuals who do a very good job of making usefully accurate forecasts:

• Be cautious
• Be humble
• Be intellectually curious and open-minded
• Value and synthesize diverse views
• Believe it’s possible to improve

With the speed at which the world moves these days, much of what we have great confidence in today has a good chance of being either wrong or irrelevant in a year, five years, or a decade down the line. Caution and humility usually do not come naturally to us, so much so that there’s a term for it: the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

So with the gates of a new year wide open before us, let’s take a pause to look at some very prominent people making very prominent predictions that were so wildly inaccurate as to be comic in hindsight.

• “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” A statement by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, in April 2007.
• “There’s just not that many videos I want to watch.” The co-founder of YouTube, Steve Chen, shared his concern about the company’s future.
• The Internet will ‘go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.’ A prediction by Bob Metcalf, the founder of 3Com.
• ‘Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.’ A statement by Martin Cooper, a pioneer of wireless communications in 1981.
• “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop.” Time Magazine got it wrong in 1968.
• “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” From a speech to the 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston by Ken Olsen, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, an early pioneer in computers.
• “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” A statement from FCC Commissioner T. A. M. Craven in 1961.   
• “Ignore electric light. When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.” In 1878 the Oxford University professor Eramus Wilson provided his thoughts on the dim future of electric light.

So what is ahead for 2018? More predictions, of course. Just remember that none of us will know whether they were good or bad for some time to come.

From everyone at Entefy, best wishes for growth and success in 2018!

As 2017 comes to a close, we thought we’d share a roundup of some major technology milestones that took place during the year. This report features technologies that you probably heard about in the news—like blockchain and genetic therapy—with important advances that didn’t get a lot of attention like “hot” solar and liquid biopsies. Taken as a whole, it’s inspiring how many major improvements to people’s lives are just over the horizon. 

Here are 11 breakthrough technologies from 2017:

1. Quantum computers reach 50 quibit threshold. Today’s computers have become known as “classical” computers because of the rapid advancement of an entirely new computing framework: quantum computing. Classical computers are based on binary systems that use bits that can either be on or off—the familiar 1 or 0. Quantum computation works using qubits that can be simultaneously 1 and 0, which greatly expands their power for doing complex, computationally-intensive operations. Quantum computing is not a recent idea, it has been explored theoretically by researchers for some time. But during 2017 university and corporate researchers built functioning quantum computers that herald a new horizon in computing, including one system said to use 50 quibits—a significant milestone because that’s the level at which quantum computers begin to surpass even the fastest classical supercomputers.
2. “Hot” solar cells. Solar panel technology has advanced in recent years, bringing costs down. In 2017 solar achieved a major new milestone in efficiency. These new “hot” solar cells convert heat to light and enable cheaper solar panels that provide continuous power. The secret to “hot” solar lies in converting heat into the spectrum of light that is most efficient at powering solar cells. Early prototypes are expected to move into commercial development in the years ahead.
3. Harvesting clean water from air. In 2017, a team of scientists from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley successfully tested a process for harvesting clean water from the air using porous crystals that convert the water using no energy at all. Previous iterations of the technology required high moisture levels and a lot of electricity. By combining the water extraction tech with solar, zero-energy water creation becomes possible, with disruptive possibilities in everything from home appliances to agriculture to city water supplies. 
4. Gene therapy 2.0. Countless diseases are caused by a single anomaly in a single gene. Researchers have been theorizing and experimenting with gene therapy for decades. The idea is compelling: use a uniquely-engineered virus to deliver healthy copies of a gene into patients with defective versions. In 2017, scientists made major strides towards deploying gene-based therapies for the first time, opening the door to treating previously untreatable conditions. 
5. Precision farming. Agriculture may be one of the oldest human enterprises, but 2017 saw food production rocket into the future. Commercial agriculture and individual farmers alike are deploying sensors, automation, drones, GPS-mapping tools, and data-analytics to create new capabilities that boost crop yields and food quality while also reducing water and chemical use. Australian researchers, for example, demonstrated a streamlined, low-cost monitoring system in Indonesia that uses sustainable solar and smartphones. 
6. Reversing paralysis. Many scientists hoping to turn brain-computer interfacing (BCI) into viable systems focus their work on paralysis, which often occurs after connections between the brain and nervous system are damaged. In 2017, a major milestone in reversing paralysis was reached when researchers wirelessly connected a BCI device to electrical stimulators elsewhere in the body. This created a ‘neural bypass’ that allowed a paralysis patient to move his limbs. Next up are attempts to use similar technology to reverse blindness and restore memories lost to Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Liquid biopsies. 2017 saw a major step forward in doctors’ ability to evaluate cancer. Traditional biopsies involve collecting tissue samples from the patient’s body for analysis by a lab. Because they often require surgery, biopsies are invasive, risky, and painful. Rapidly advancing through clinical trials, liquid biopsies allow cancer detection from a vial of blood, offering a faster and easier alternative to traditional biopsies as well as entirely new cancer detection capabilities. 
8. Payments using facial recognition. During 2017, years of development in facial recognition technologies paid off in China, where facial-recognition systems went mainstream. These systems use a person’s face as a “key” to do things like authorize payments, pick up train tickets, and open doors in secure buildings. In the years ahead, the same technology is expected to expand into new areas like policing and everyday interactions with banks, stores, and public transportation.
9. Space race 2.0. Space X, the private space technologies company, achieved a major milestone earlier in 2017 when it landed one of its Falcon 9 rockets. Not because of the landing, but because that same rocket had been launched and landed previously. By demonstrating that reusable rockets are possible, the space industry took a major step towards lower-cost access to space. But that wasn’t the only big news in the space industry. Blue Origin announced that it would begin carrying tourists to space within 18 months. And then there’s NASA’s announcement of a mission to an asteroid with $10,000 quadrillion worth of nickel and iron. 
10. Blockchain beyond Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s skyrocketing price got most of the media attention during 2017, but there were big milestones taking place in blockchain, the foundational technology that enables cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. New uses of blockchain were launched in applications as diverse as music distribution, automobile title registry, and government IDs. Blockchain is rapidly disrupting industries like healthcare, insurance, and financial services, with $5.4 billion dollars in global investment expected by 2023.
11. 4D printing. Just as 3D printing is moving into the mainstream in the aerospace, energy, electronics, and manufacturing industries, a new technology is coming of age: 4D printing. In 4D printing, the fourth dimension refers to time, because 4D-printed materials are designed to change shape when exposed to water, temperature changes, or other factors. New uses of the technology emerged during 2017 when the aerospace industry began testing the use of 4D printing to send compact, collapsed materials into space where they can self-assemble. 

In the months and years ahead, we expect many of these technological marvels to create not only new capabilities but entirely new products and even industries. The future looks bright.

Creative destruction is the economics term for the incessant churn of markets and economies. New technologies and macro-level trends create new products and services that, over time, replace the demand for legacy products and services. The horse-and-buggy industry gave way to the automobile industry, which today is transitioning to the autonomous, electric vehicle future. 

Jobs, too, evolve with the times as demand for one set of skills is replaced with the need for entirely new skills. The past 15 years have been no exception. Many of today’s highest-paying roles have come into existence only recently; and some of these roles are already in decline as new technologies herald the need for entirely new skillsets.

As 2017 draws to a close, we thought it would be timely to highlight just how many of today’s jobs simply didn’t exist just 15 years ago. It’s surprising that a relatively short period of time, just a decade and half, represents the birth of the technological fixtures of our lives like the smartphone and on-demand services like ride hailing. And the jobs that make them possible.

Here are 15 jobs that barely existed 15 years ago:

1. Mobile app developer. The iPhone arrived in 2007, followed soon after by Android devices. And just 10 years later, half of the world’s adults have a smartphone. Many tasks that once got done sitting in front of a desktop and keyboard are now more commonly done on a mobile device, everything from banking to communication to shopping. So naturally there was an explosion in the number of mobile app developers.
2. Social media manager. These days, businesses large and small have personnel dedicated to managing a company’s social media presence. Social media is used for traditional marketing as well as customer service. Social media managers (and related jobs) evolved from earlier digital marketing roles to encompass the specific skills needed to help a brand stand out on today’s social media channels. 
3. Ride-sharing driver. Once upon a time, urbanites stood on street corners with arms raised, hoping to attract a passing taxi cab. Today, of course, ride hailing is done with a few taps of an app, and yesterday’s taxi driver is giving way to today’s gig economy driver. Uber, the leading ride-sharing company, was founded in 2009 and quickly grew to become the world’s most valuable startup. One interesting dynamic about app-enabled ride sharing is that it has created driving jobs that will prove to be only temporary. Companies are investing heavily in self-driving cars and have their sights set on flying cars as well.
4. Self-driving car engineer. While driverless cars are poised to make a major dent in transportation, they are also beginning to create new types of jobs. Driverless cars can’t yet develop or repair themselves, so engineers, mechanics, and software developers are in-demand jobs today and should remain so into the foreseeable future.
5. Cloud computing specialist. You don’t have to go back much more than 10 years or so for the statement “I work in the cloud” to sound downright crazy. While the concept of distributed software services had been around for some time, cloud computing really took off after 2006. Today, more than half of U.S. businesses use cloud services of one form or another. 
6. Big Data analyst and data scientist. Digital data management by IT professionals isn’t new; but beginning in the mid-2000’s the concept of Big Data took off as the management and productive use of data entered a new phase. These days, the path out from under all the data piling up every second lies with the skills of Big Data analysts and data scientists. With data volumes growing 40% per year, there is tremendous demand for specialists who can analyze, process, and make useable all of this information. 
7. Sustainability manager. Sustainability was once a niche concept, reserved for progressive companies focused on finding productive uses of human and natural resources. But in the same way as electric cars have gone mainstream in recent years, so too has sustainability. Professionals who develop corporate sustainability programs are in demand, working on projects like identifying “green” cost-saving opportunities and federal, state, and local tax rebates.
8. Vloggers. The term “weblog” evolved into the more familiar “blog” and “blogger” in the late 1990’s. You would be forgiven for not recognizing the term “vlogger,” a more recent term that combines “video” with “blogger.” With the rise of video sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, vlogging has become big business, with top YouTube stars earning millions of dollars through advertising, social media, and sponsorship deals.
9. Commercial drone operators. Even though government regulations covering unmanned aerial vehicles—commonly called drones—are just now being written, demand for drone pilots is skyrocketing. Once reserved for military use, commercial use of drones is expanding to include everything from deliveries by UPS and Amazon to aerial photography and videography of commercial real estate sites. 
10. Digital content marketers. The marketing industry is one of many that has seen phenomenal changes over the last decade and it continues to develop constantly. Go back 15 years or so and marketing budgets were still focused on traditional advertising channels like radio and TV and print brochures. Beginning with email marketing, though, marketing departments evolved quickly to encompass sophisticated data-driven digital campaigns covering websites, social media, and digital ads. Driving much of this transformation was the rise of “content marketing,” the strategy of using high-value content like articles and explainer videos to market without really marketing. 
11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist. Before Google came along and gave the world near-instant search of the Internet, companies like Yahoo! thrived by providing directories that categorized websites. But as the number of websites exploded, a marketing problem emerged: how does my business get found amongst all the noise? “Getting found” became the domain of Search Engine Optimization, the art and science of selecting keywords to support business objectives. Once limited to a handful of tips and hacks, SEO today is a complex and ever-changing field, and its professionals are in-demand at businesses large and small.
12. Market research data miner. Businesses are awash in data. Making sense of the data involves turning all the 1’s and 0’s into actionable insights. The role of market researchers has evolved in lock step with the Big Data revolution, so that today these prophets of market trends are a highly technical specialty skilled at finding meaning in reams of marketing and customer data. 
13. Elder-care services coordinator. Two powerful trends are driving the demand for jobs in the elder-care space: the aging U.S. population and the increasing complexity of the healthcare system. Demand by older Americans for in-home healthcare services is growing, but because so much of the healthcare systems is DIY, figuring out how to access those services can be complicated. Elder-care services coordinators are specialists who understand the healthcare needs of elderly patients and the intricacies of the services available to them. 
14. Medical biller and coder. Here’s another newly emerged role driven by changes to technology. The U.S. healthcare system is largely structured around fixed rates that doctors receive as reimbursement for services. A regular office visit is reimbursed at one rate, treating a broken ankle at another. Medical billers and coders provide the expertise that connects doctors’ services to insurance and governmental reimbursement, commonly employed at doctors’ offices, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities.
15. Genetic counselor. Advances in genetics are taking place at a breathtaking pace, as seen by the successful uses of the Crispr-cas9 gene editing technology. As genetic technologies move out of the labs and into mainstream, a new job title has emerged as well: genetic counselor. Genetic counselors help patients interpret the results of genetic tests to aid in the prevention and management of illness. As medical capabilities around genetic testing improve, and as new technologies like genetic modification of embryos mature, these counselors will be increasingly in demand at healthcare facilities the world over.

There’s an important insight to be gleaned from this list: given the rapid advances in technology, 15 years from now the world will no doubt look quite different than it does today, and we’ll take for granted new technologies that are now in their infancy. Think: artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous transportation, and smart cities. For any professional expecting their career to continue into this future, the lesson is to keep learning the new skills that will keep you competitive and productive. The need to learn new skills through lifelong learning has perhaps never been greater.

As 2016 comes to a close, we’d like to express our thanks to those who support us on our amazing journey. It’s this support that inspires us to continue doing the work that we do. We look forward to an exciting year ahead!

Wishing you and yours all the warmth, wonder, and joy during this season and beyond.

With gratitude and cheer,
The Entefyers

As 2017 winds down, we wanted to thank all of the amazing people who inspire our work at Entefy. It’s been a hugely productive year for us, and we can’t wait for everything that’s ahead in 2018. 

Wishing you warmth, wonder, and joy for the holidays and beyond.

The Entefyers

Cybercriminals have a number of options for purchasing the personal data they need to really ruin someone’s financial life. Obviously, they need a social security number. Date of birth, current address, and a credit card number or two are no brainers. Many novice identity thieves make a common mistake when they’re starting out, buying this data piecemeal on the black market. But there’s a better way! They can get all of the data they need bundled together in one convenient package: medical records.

Medical records have been called the “holy grail” for cybercriminals because they contain a person’s name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number in a single record, making identity theft far easier than any of us would like to realize. So it’s not surprising that medical records fetch 10x the price of credit card numbers. The illicit demand for stolen medical data is on the rise, with the situation likely to get worse before it gets better. 

Data security is already a mess in the U.S., as the Equifax breach demonstrated in 2017. That attack left more than 145 million Americans vulnerable to identity theft after their Social Security numbers were exposed in the breach. Those 10 digits have become the keys to our financial identities, but 81 years since the first SSNs were issued, their utility in the digital age has become questionable. We need a more secure way to protect our digital data, and blockchain technology may well provide the answer.

Why the premium on medical data? 

Medical data is a lucrative haul for would-be criminals, particularly because the theft goes undetected for longer periods than in other crimes. People check their credit card balances more often than they review their medical files and insurance records, so they’re likely to spot a suspicious purchase much quicker than a false insurance claim. This buys hackers time to not only sell the data but use it to schedule medical procedures, purchase prescription drugs, or exploit the information in other ways. 

Once victims realize what’s happened, coping with the theft can be arduous. With credit card theft, they can simply call and cancel the card, and they’ll have a new one within a few days. But the damage from medical data theft is more sinister, as criminals can use the information included to file false tax returns as well. Although careful, consistent monitoring of your accounts can help you protect your identity and catch suspicious activity early, there’s not a lot you can do to prevent the types of widespread hacks that have plagued hospitals and medical providers in recent years. 

A substantial shift in how both governments and healthcare providers use cybersecurity defense technologies is long overdue, as evidenced by the WannaCry ransomware attack that struck the U.K.’s National Health Service, an attack the country’s own National Audit Office said could have been prevented if it had followed standard security best practices. The fact that a leading national health system could be crippled by what experts described as a “relatively unsophisticated attack” indicates just how fragile our most important data systems are around the globe. 

When electronic isn’t everything  

Security isn’t the only challenge when it comes to electronic medical records. Tom Price, the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, lamented earlier this year that, “We’ve turned physicians into data entry clerks.” Some doctors say that having to navigate electronic health records systems detracts from the quality of their patient interactions. Rather than having conversations about a patient’s symptoms, they’re concerned with whether they’re documenting the visit properly, which weakens the doctor-patient relationship and leads to inferior care. A 2016 study showed that physicians spend half their time consumed with desk work and electronic health records and only 27 percent actually attending to patients. The Mayo Clinic even found that the work burdens created by electronic records systems contributed to increased risk of physician burnout. 

Accessing your medical records as a patient isn’t exactly a walk in the park, either. Once you submit a request to your doctor, it can take 30 days to receive the information, and you may have to provide a written statement asking for the records. If you want to change incorrect information, the provider may charge you. While we want some level of security when it comes to accessing medical records, submitting a written request and waiting 30 days to see our own information seems a bit outdated, to say the least, especially in an era in which we can transfer money, book flights, and even schedule doctor appointments directly from our phones. 

Online portals allow a bit more flexibility and immediacy when we want to review test results or physician’s notes, but it’s cumbersome to have to log into different portals for every provider we visit. Someone who sees several specialists is often tasked with obtaining their medical records to ensure that each doctor has access to the same information, and even then, there is no guarantee of a cohesive care plan. There’s also little transparency as to who can see sensitive medical data, leaving patients disempowered. 

What would a blockchain health record solution look like?

Blockchain could be a potent antidote to what ails existing electronic health record (EHR) systems. Medical data stored on a specially designed blockchain could be encrypted using a patient’s private key for access. This would make medical data less vulnerable to cyberattacks, as does the distributed structure of the blockchain. Because the data blocks in the chain are linked together, cyber attackers can’t simply try to hack one aspect or hide what they’re doing. 

A blockchain-based EHR system would also put power in the hands of the patients, something demonstrated by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Their team engineered a proof-of-concept system that showed promising results. Writing in Harvard Business Review about the power of blockchain to transform EHR, the team outlined how their system works:

Imagine that every EHR sent updates about medications, problems, and allergy lists to an open-source, community-wide trusted ledger, so additions and subtractions to the medical record were well understood and auditable across organizations. Instead of just displaying data from a single database, the EHR could display data from every database referenced in the ledger. The end result would be perfectly reconciled community-wide information about you, with guaranteed integrity from the point of data generation to the point of use, without manual human intervention.

Importantly, the system shifts the control of medical records from institutions to the patients themselves: 

It stores a signature of the record on a blockchain and notifies the patient, who is ultimately in control of where that record can travel. The signature assures that an unaltered copy of the record is obtained.

Under this scenario, all of a patient’s doctors and caregivers would access the same, up-to-date information. With less recordkeeping burden, doctors would spend more time engaging with patients, ostensibly leading to an increase in the quality of care. 

Improving cybersecurity in general, and medical data in particular, is an urgent concern. With advances in artificial intelligence giving hackers better tools to commit cybercrimes, the future is one of more and more cyberattack attempts around the globe. We can’t stop hackers from pursuing valuable data like medical records, but we can make it harder for them to steal them—and blockchain could be an important tool in that fight. 

Gold has been mined from the Earth for around 6,000 years, serving as a repository of value ever since in the form of coins, the bejeweled headgear of pharaohs, and the gold bullion in Fort Knox. But recent predictions from economists suggest that in 2015 the world may have passed “peak gold,” with global gold mine production expected to decline annually until the last accessible gold is extracted around 2035. 

That date has an interesting parallel with Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. Just as there’s a fixed amount of gold on Earth, the design for Bitcoin restricts the total number of Bitcoins that can ever be mined to 21 million tokens. To date, 16 million have been mined but the rate at which new Bitcoins are being created slows each year as mining becomes more computationally complex and expensive. It’s been estimated that the last Bitcoin will be mined in 2040.  

A fixed supply of gold and Bitcoin may be where their parallels end. Gold’s value is determined on market exchanges where an ounce of gold sold at around $1,283 today whereas a single Bitcoin was valued at nearly $17,000. 
Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you.