HealthTAG wins APICTA 2022 Cross Category: Start-Up

A patient-centred health information network

The APICTA entry presented HealthTAG as a health information network designed around the patient. The idea was to move beyond records that remain separated inside individual providers and create a connected view that a person can access with appropriate permission. In the current system, hospitals remain the custodians and controllers of clinical records. Blockchain records consent and access events for audit, while clinical records stay in hospital-controlled systems.

HealthTAG also described an electronic health identity that uses a specially encoded chip as an entry point to the Personal Health Record. The card or NFC sticker helps a person open the service; it does not store the clinical record. Access is available to the individual and authorised healthcare professionals through the relevant permission controls.

The system supports authorised information exchange. Patients and healthcare providers can use connected information, while other organisations and applications access it through defined interfaces with the user’s consent. The design centres on the person receiving care and their privacy.

How HealthTAG developed

HealthTAG began development in early 2020, as COVID-19 spread. The team first presented the idea to a provincial public health organisation. Although it attracted interest, the experience showed how difficult it would be to move a new health information system from proposal to sustained use.

The team continued building the product and presented the project to Siriraj Hospital, Siriraj Piyamaharajkarun Hospital, and the Golden Jubilee Medical Center. These conversations helped shape the idea and brought the work into the Siriraj 5G Smart Hospital programme, supported by the 5G committee and the NBTC. HealthTAG also discussed the approach with medical schools in several regions.

During 2021, the early product work focused on information related to COVID-19. The team then refined its focus: the core problem was connecting hospital-controlled health information so that an authorised patient or clinician could reach the relevant record without repeating the same history at every step.

In 2022, HealthTAG described a roadmap for connecting medication, allergy, treatment history, and coverage information while clinicians continued using their existing hospital systems. The plan covered the care journey from treatment and dispensing to claims, with broader adoption across medical schools proposed for the following years. HealthTAG used this roadmap to guide product development in 2022.

HealthTAG was founded as a medical technology startup by doctors who had experienced fragmented care directly. At the time, the team said it wanted to support Thailand’s MedTech ecosystem and was preparing to raise capital to expand the service.

The team framed the potential value for four groups:

• Patients could see a more complete health history, reduce missing information, and follow changes over time.
• Healthcare professionals could spend less time repeating administrative work and more time on care.
• The health system could support smoother care centred on the patient, including services for people receiving care across borders.
• Startups could build medical innovation from information shared through valid consent and appropriate governance.

The APICTA result

APICTA’s 2022 winner list names Healthtag of Thailand as the winner of Cross Category: Start-Up. The listed entry is BLOCKCHAIN-BASED PHR & HEALTH DATA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM.