UAE LiberHealth uses blockchain to save lives

Sometimes in life people turn tragedies into hope. LiberHealth is such as story. Syed Abrar Ahmed, the current CEO and Co-Founder of LiberHealth, was dealing with a heartbreaking situation in 2015. His brother Azaad, diagnosed with liver cancer, would sometimes receive the wrong drugs or even over dose of drugs because hospitals in Pakistan and EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems were not connected. As such each hospital would have no idea what drugs were already in his brother’s system and complications would arise.

A year later in 2016, after the sad death of Azaad, Syed decided that it was time to fix this issue among hospitals. As Syed states, “This issue is not just about one person, not just about one region. It is something that people in MENA, USA, and Europe face on a day to day basis, it is a global issue. If we can send tweets why is it still difficult for a person to control and carry their electronic health record, it is time that hospitals, clinics connect these systems. The platform could rescue thousands of patient lives lost due to medical errors.”

The solution progressed further in 2107 when Syed and his co-founder Zain Moosa, began to look into blockchain as an interoperability tool built on a trusted system. As Syed explains, “Blockchain solution was very close to the solution we had built out of the box, so we decided to incorporate it into our solution.”

Liberhealth built its solution utilizing IBM Hyperledger Fabric because it is permissioned based and thus more acceptable among healthcare institutions. Zain states, “We wanted to use a permission based blockchain platform that all stakeholders can join be they hospitals, governmental entities, pharmaceutical company, insurance companies and others.”

One of the major challenges they faced was how to onboard patients and the solution was incorporation of digital identity. Syed and Zain decided to implement a global digital identity solution powered by biometrics utilizing eye scans instead of fingerprint and facial scans which they were using in 2019 before Covid-19. Syed explains, “After the pandemic fingerprint scans are now something obsolete, so iris scans have become the solution as they are more unique and contactless. This digital identity is then linked to health records on Blockchain platform.”

Liberhealth had been selected by GIST Business Incubation program in the USA, as well as the IN5 program at Dubai Internet City. Covid-19 accelerated the production of LiberHealth solution. It was also accepted by Spark Niagara a business incubator in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. As Zain explains, “this was a great opportunity for us since Spark has large corporate partners such as HP, IBM and academic institutions.

Today after Covid-19, LiberHealth plans to expand across different sectors, including businesses and offices, airports, hotels and hospitals. Zain explains, “Businesses are incorporating identity scan and temperature gauge into their workflows and Liber Health can easily automate the entire process for them."

LiberHealth is easily integrated on top of Hospitals’ EMR (Electronic Medical Record). As Syed explains, “We have made it easy for hospitals and healthcare service providers to use Liberhealth because they are still doing exactly what they were doing before but with more transparent information, while ensuring privacy.”

LiberHealth is currently in discussions with healthcare providers in USA, Canada, and even in UAE where conversations are ongoing with private and public entities in the UAE and elsewhere. As Zain states, “The platform is ready we are finalizing regulatory and legal issues in Canada and elsewhere.”

LiberHealth follows a blockchain as a service subscription model as well as license structure for bigger organizations.

Currently LiberHealth is seeking investments of $250,000 in equity funding convertible nodes. Prior to this the founders have utilized their own personal funds as well as winnings from competitions.