About Akiri and building trusted networks for health data

Data. It is the lifeblood of the healthcare industry. No single challenge is more important to improving the efficiency or effectiveness of healthcare in the United States than transporting patient health data. How do you protect it? When can you share it? Who gets to use it?

Today, our industry’s data arteries are sclerotic. Thirty percent of patient charts cannot be found on visits. Fifty percent of physician time is spent on data, not patient care. $200 billion is wasted annually because health insurance payers and healthcare providers don’t have instant access to the right information at the right time.

Akiri aims to solve this challenge. Not with another HIE (health information exchange) solution. Or ETL (extract, transform, load) process. Or EHR (electronic health record) system. We have a better idea.

WHAT IS AKIRI SWITCH?

Akiri Switch is a software-defined network (SDN) and secure routing protocol for healthcare data. This data, which Akiri never stores, spans the entire spectrum of health and medical information. Akiri supports security, identification, authentication, compliance, analytics, and applications.

HOW DOES THE SYSTEM WORK?

Which companies can join the network?

Subscribers can include any healthcare provider, health insurance payer, pharmaceutical company, health technology company, or healthcare organization. Both Health2047 (the American Medical Association's innovation enterprise) and Celgene (a global pharmaceutical company) are already collaborating with Akiri.

Who is backing Akiri?

Akiri (first incorporated as "Health2047 SwitchCo, Inc.") received a $10 million Series A investment from Health2047.

What is Akiri’s business model?

Akiri will build, manage, operate, and maintain the Akiri Switch network. Partners can sell solutions and services on top of the network. Akiri itself will offer a portfolio of products and services to help clients maximize the value of the network and protocol.

Does Akiri Switch store data or manage accounts?

No, Akiri Switch does not store data of any type from patients, physicians, providers, or payers. Nor does Akiri manage accounts on behalf of any person, group, or company. Instead, we enable the secure method of transferring health-related data.

Is Akiri Switch a network or a protocol?

Akiri Switch is both a network and a protocol. As a network, Akiri does three things. First, it sets policies and configures data layers. Second, it imbeds security in every transfer. Third, it manages detection, authorization, and compliance. As a protocol, Akiri authorizes anyone with appropriate rights, which are assessed in the control layer, to communicate or transfer data.

Is Akiri an HIE, an ETL, or an EMR?

No, Akiri and Akiri Switch is not a health information exchange (HIE); an extract, transform, load (ETL) process; or an electronic medical record (EMR) system. Instead, Akiri is a network for facilitating the flow of healthcare data as well as the protocol for transferring the data in real time.

What healthcare data does Akiri support?

Akiri Switch supports information contained in or metadata from any source related to health. This may include any information from or for test results, clinical trials, fitness equipment, prescriptions, or thousands of other sources.

Is Akiri Switch similar to SWIFT messaging?

Yes, in several ways, Akiri is similar to SWIFT's messaging service for financial institutions. SWIFT enables automated financial communication among subscribers at more than 11,000 financial institutions. Akiri does the same for healthcare data among subscribers. Like SWIFT, Akiri will not store any data.

Does Akiri use blockchain technology?

Akiri leverages blockchain principles. Blockchain is a distributed digital record or ledger, similar to a database, with built-in safeguards to ensure that only people authorized do so can make changes to the data. Akiri does not store data. Instead, it’s a network for securely transmitting information through a standardized system of codes.