Jim St. Clair
OXFORD, Miss. – A technology called blockchain has drawn attention for its use of digital currencies, such as bitcoin, and for its potential to help identify and discredit “fake news” online. More recent discussions focus on its use to enhance security and operations in the health care industry.
Jim St. Clair, chief technology officer of the Dinocrates Group, will present “Blockchain: Separating Hype from Opportunity” at 7 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 22) in the University of Mississippi’s Overby Center Auditorium. Free and open to the public, St. Clair’s presentation will focus on how blockchain technology affects the creation, storage and transfer of health care documentation.
The discussion, sponsored by the UM interdisciplinary minor program in digital media studies, is a timely one, said Robert Cummings, the university’s executive director of academic innovation and associate professor of writing and rhetoric.
“Jim St. Clair will be promoting the use of blockchain technology for the secure sharing of health care documentation,” Cummings said. “The technology presents interesting affordances around security and authentication, which have received a lot of attention as applied to cryptocurrencies.
“However, there are additional applications of blockchain beyond bitcoin, which ultimately may prove more transformative.”
Blockchain involves a distributed database stored on multiple servers that provides a secure, traceable means of recording transactions, storing information and more.
St. Clair, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Ole Miss, is also the founder of the Institute for Healthcare Financial Technology, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health care value chain to reduce costs and streamline access and delivery of health care. The institute builds on the innovations of financial, insurance and health care technology, especially in such concepts as distributed ledgers, blockchain, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence.
At Dinocrates, a boutique strategy and technology consulting firm, he leads the company’s transformation technology initiatives in the adoption of blockchain, robotic process automation and addressing ongoing challenges in security and compliance.
St. Clair’s talk will allow Ole Miss students and other attendees to learn more about blockchain technology and how it can affect the future of health care records.
For more information about the UM interdisciplinary minor program in digital media studies, go to https://catalog.olemiss.edu/dig-media-st.