Connecting Government and Private Industry
In 1999, HS GovTech was the first company to provide an internet-based system for health protection surveillance and regulatory enforcement for the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia. A year later, the company launched the first integrated state-wide program for the Virginia Department of Health, encompassing all 34 health districts. Then in 2003, HS GovTech implemented the first public-facing web portal, allowing anyone to view restaurant health inspections in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Health. Today, the company remains a leading provider of SaaS applications for government and is the largest provider of Environmental Health Data Management Solutions in North America.
Challenge
As of 2019, inspections, auditing, regulatory compliance and certification, quality control monitoring, and third-party validation generated nearly $3 billion annually. Whether part of a third-party organization or government agency, inspectors and auditors across countless industries collect and analyze vast amounts of data to ensure health and safety procedures are followed. However, during this process, data can become siloed and inaccessible to critical stakeholders, including the general public.
Unfortunately, siloed health and safety data sets can create anonymity for organizations and governments, undermining personal accountability. In other words, without adequate oversight, these entities can mishandle vital information without consequence. Blockchain-based applications are one solution to this problem, generating an immutable, transparent inspection and audit data record.
Solution
In partnership with SIMBA Chain, HS GovTech (formerly HealthSpace) has developed an open protocol and decentralized Marketplace for Verification, Inspection, and Audit (VIA) procedures. This initiative has increased public accountability, industry efficiency, and government compliance.
The API-based solution expands on the cloud services offered by HS GovTech, enabling seamless access to blockchain technology. As a distributed ledger, the platform tracks audit timelines across multiple business verticals, bolstering the effectiveness of inspections. Specifically, the VIA API allows data from any application to be transacted and stored on the underlying blockchain.
The HS GovTech VIA Marketplace delivers this functionality through a tokenized ecosystem that improves the quality of inspection and audit data using a Proof of Verification data model, whereby auditors collectively validate the work of inspectors.
Results
As a well-established player in the medical field, HS GovTech is known for ushering in 21st-century health inspections and audits. The company provides a single integrated system that handles the data and communication needs of multiple geographic locations. This integrative approach lowers costs, saves time, eliminates redundant data entry, automates repetitive tasks, simplifies training, and reduces downtime—streamlining data movement.
Before HS GovTech, inspectors filled out forms manually while conducting audits, keeping hard copies at their offices or inputting them into a computer. As a result, sharing, analyzing, or accessing this data was unfeasible across different regions. In response to these challenges, the VIA API platform was designed to achieve the following:
- Single Solution: Provide an all-encompassing, one-stop solution for inspections and audits across business and government sectors, creating a bridge between the two.
- Decentralized Data: Enable the decentralization of inspection data, ensuring information is owned by the object (i.e., food source) and moderated publicly (immutable).
- Tokenization: Blockchain-based tokenization of inspection data creates a liquidity pool, allowing the public to participate in the VIA Marketplace ecosystem (i.e., generate, curate, rate, consume, and sell inspection or audit data).
- Transparency: The above functionality ensures data safety and traceability, especially in government and private industry accountability.
Challenge
As of 2019, inspections, auditing, regulatory compliance and certification, quality control monitoring, and third-party validation generated nearly $3 billion annually. Whether part of a third-party organization or government agency, inspectors and auditors across countless industries collect and analyze vast amounts of data to ensure health and safety procedures are followed. However, during this process, data can become siloed and inaccessible to critical stakeholders, including the general public.
Unfortunately, siloed health and safety data sets can create anonymity for organizations and governments, undermining personal accountability. In other words, without adequate oversight, these entities can mishandle vital information without consequence. Blockchain-based applications are one solution to this problem, generating an immutable, transparent inspection and audit data record.
Solution
In partnership with SIMBA Chain, HS GovTech (formerly HealthSpace) has developed an open protocol and decentralized Marketplace for Verification, Inspection, and Audit (VIA) procedures. This initiative has increased public accountability, industry efficiency, and government compliance.
The API-based solution expands on the cloud services offered by HS GovTech, enabling seamless access to blockchain technology. As a distributed ledger, the platform tracks audit timelines across multiple business verticals, bolstering the effectiveness of inspections. Specifically, the VIA API allows data from any application to be transacted and stored on the underlying blockchain.
The HS GovTech VIA Marketplace delivers this functionality through a tokenized ecosystem that improves the quality of inspection and audit data using a Proof of Verification data model, whereby auditors collectively validate the work of inspectors.
Results
As a well-established player in the medical field, HS GovTech is known for ushering in 21st-century health inspections and audits. The company provides a single integrated system that handles the data and communication needs of multiple geographic locations. This integrative approach lowers costs, saves time, eliminates redundant data entry, automates repetitive tasks, simplifies training, and reduces downtime—streamlining data movement.
Before HS GovTech, inspectors filled out forms manually while conducting audits, keeping hard copies at their offices or inputting them into a computer. As a result, sharing, analyzing, or accessing this data was unfeasible across different regions. In response to these challenges, the VIA API platform was designed to achieve the following:
- Single Solution: Provide an all-encompassing, one-stop solution for inspections and audits across business and government sectors, creating a bridge between the two.
- Decentralized Data: Enable the decentralization of inspection data, ensuring information is owned by the object (i.e., food source) and moderated publicly (immutable).
- Tokenization: Blockchain-based tokenization of inspection data creates a liquidity pool, allowing the public to participate in the VIA Marketplace ecosystem (i.e., generate, curate, rate, consume, and sell inspection or audit data).
- Transparency: The above functionality ensures data safety and traceability, especially in government and private industry accountability.
The HS GovTech Verification, Inspection, and Audit (VIA) Marketplace and API represent a generational leap forward for inspection and audit data-based applications. With the VIA API, governments and organizations can decentralize their inspection and audit business logic while creating innovative applications within the tokenized Marketplace ecosystem. The VIA Marketplace represents a significant inspection and audit culture shift, dramatically altering strategies and processes of the past.
Specifically, public and private sector organizations with inspection and audit processes can migrate from a traditional service-based model to a data-centric approach, bringing data accessibility to the forefront. The VIA Marketplace also disrupts the system by empowering data quality and reuse, enabling independent data collection, curation, auditing, and rating. This functionality supports innovative business models across the inspection and audit industry.
