Texas-based Hedera Hashgraph is using blockchain technology to help the UK National Health Service (NHS) monitor the cold storage equipment being used to store Covid-19 vaccines.

Hedera is working with UK-based digital asset tracking and monitoring provider Everyware on an initial group of facilities in Warwickshire including the Stratford Upon Avon and Warwick hospitals, with a wider rollout planned as vaccine distribution progresses.

The various Covid-19 vaccines, including the one developed by Pfizer and now approved for use in the UK, require exact degrees of cold storage at all times to maintain their efficacy. While centralised distribution centres and transportation units can store the vaccine at the recommended -70˚C for up to ten days unopened, they must also be stored at hospitals and other administering centres for five days at refrigerated +2 to +8˚C conditions.

Everyware provides asset tracking and monitoring software that can be configured to monitor a number of variables, including temperature, round the clock, from anywhere. By leveraging Everyware’s asset monitoring at the last kilometre, hospitals and healthcare facilities can ensure that vaccines are being maintained at the proper temperature throughout the entire time in their custody, before they are administered to patients.

“Monitoring the ongoing temperature of these refrigeration units is critically important, and ensuring the integrity of those data is an equally important part of maintaining trust in the results, and being able to easily share them across the entire vaccine supply chain,” said Tom Screen, technical director for Everyware. “Hedera’s distributed ledger technology provides that tamper-proof record-keeping system, making it perfect for recording and validating results efficiently and cost-effectively. Everyware welcomes collaboration with other partners in the vaccine supply chain to ensure end-to-end traceability.”

In addition, Everyware enables healthcare facilities to share information with other parts of the vaccine delivery chain, including pharmaceutical providers, centralised storage facilities and transportation companies, to respond and adjust to any issues as they arise. The offering already provides this service for a number of other healthcare and pharmaceutical assets, including chemotherapy and other drugs, and blood and plasma, all of which have their own storage requirements.

“Everyware has already demonstrated their capability as a trusted partner, helping us monitor the integrity of a wide variety of clinical applications,” said Steve Clarke, electro biomedical engineering manager at South Warwickshire NHS. “As we begin to prepare the roll out of these new Covid-19 vaccines, with the specific temperature requirements, we recognise the importance of utilising their same tracking and monitoring capabilities. This, in turn, will allow us to demonstrate our commitment to providing safe patient care.”

Hedera is a decentralised public platform on which developers can build secure applications. The platform is governed by a council of organisations including Avery Dennison, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, Dentons, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London , Wipro and Zain Group.

Mance Harmon, Hedera founder and CEO, explained how the Hedera network creates a secure, distributed base network layer for many kinds of supply chain, pharmaceutical and healthcare services.

“Hedera makes it practical and cost-effective for organisations to benefit from the transparency and accountability of distributed ledgers,” he said. “Asset monitoring and management is a great example of this, and we’re so pleased to help bring that data integrity and trust to the important work that Everyware is doing with NHS hospitals in support of their emerging Covid-19 vaccination efforts.”