The Permanent Web for Healthcare with IPFS and Blockchain

How do you determine if your organization is designing innovating experiences? There is a simple question that provides that answer. Ask yourself, “Is the organization talking about IPFS?” If the answer is yes, you’re likely relevant to the healthcare innovation discussion. If, however, the answer is no, your organization has missed the innovation bus. IPFS, a foundational technology, will transform healthcare by 2020.

The joining of IPFS and blockchain technologies is a natural partnership. Together the outcome is a powerful distributed permanent digital ledger that is accessible across heterogeneous systems. IPFS, InterPlanetary File System, is a peer-to-peer distributed system that connects networks using the same system of files forming a generalized Merkle-DAG. The DAG structure is a system of connected objects, connected usually by their hash.

IPFS is “the permanent web.” It accomplishes this feat through a combination of distributed peer-to-peer file system storage and Merkle data structures that enable versioned file systems to communicate. Peers (or nodes) do not need to trust each other. IPFS provides five main benefits...