CONSENSUS NETWORKS INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N204-A02

Description

Under normal circumstances, medical supply chains face gross challenges and inefficiencies, resulting in billions of dollars of wasted resources and frequent shortages of mission-critical materials. In 2019 alone, 40% of lifesaving acute care drugs were found to be in short supply and overall, drug shortages cost healthcare in excess of $350MM. These ongoing weaknesses have become even more pronounced during the COVID-19 health crisis. Over 70% of active pharmaceutical ingredients that supply the U.S healthcare market are imported and face severe constraints as a result of the pandemic. Conventional approaches to medical supplies management fail to account for challenges such as extensive traceability and trackability for biologics and controlled substances, regulatory tracking for protection of intellectual property and FDA approval, and the expansion of in-home medical tests and equipment.  If the U.S is to retain a robust medical supply chain to support a rapidly deployable military, an end-to-end solution tracking medical supplies from the supplier, through approval, storage, distribution, use, and monitoring must be implemented to support DoN and DoD personnel. However, it is key that such a technology does not merely address the problems, but is also robust under the unique challenges that deployed units may experience such as infrastructure inconsistencies and limited bandwidth.    Consensus Networks built HealthNet, an integrated data platform that improves patient care through automated Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) resource creation, an analytics toolkit, and secure, highly traceable data sharing powered by blockchain technology. For this Phase I effort, Consensus Networks  proposes to extend HealthNet’s capabilities to address the needs of the DoN by integrating with medical supply chain sensors and EMR data sources and building a novel dashboard visualization application in the environment. The proposed extension  would allow key personnel in the DoN to see real-time supply chain data, coordinate treatment plans and medical supply purchase orders, predict the likelihood of a shortage, and more, ensuring that patient care is administered efficiently and medical supplies are managed optimally. Additionally, Consensus Networks will integrate smart contracts (code/logic embedded into a blockchain) into HealthNet to control how medical supplies should be handled under certain conditions and are self-enforcing. The HealthNet extension will be designed to integrate easily with legacy DoN platforms to provide a simple onboarding process and use its data analytics toolkit to power a net new application and data visualization dashboard using modern UI/UX frameworks to provide a seamless user experience that enhances the DoN’s ability to coordinate care and manage medical resources, without disrupting their workflow.