The retail giant is looking to protect a method for obtaining EHR data via the distributed ledger technology. Walmarts ongoing investigation of blockchain technologies seems to have intersected with its growing interest in joining the healthcare space, according to a patent application released earlier this week by the US Patent and Trademark Office.According to the document, which was filed in December, the retail giant is seeking to protect a method that allows a patients EHR to be obtained from a blockchain database even if they are unable to communicate. Doing so would require verification from two different keys: a public key stored in a wearable that would be scanned by emergency responders via RFID, and a private key that is obtained by scanning a biometric signature from the patient.The appeal of storing a patients EHR on blockchain is the relative difficulty of an unintended party accessing or modifying their data, the company wrote in its application. Both a public and private key are required to before the system will allow access to the patients record, with the private key being specific to each individual user.

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