(Yicai Global) Aug. 18 -- Alibaba Health Information Technology Ltd. [HKG:00241], the online health service owned by Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA], will trial the medical treatment applications of its blockchain technology in Changzhou in eastern Jiangsu province.

Ali Health will collaborate with the city's government to apply the most cutting-edge blockchain technology to the underlying technical architecture of Changzhou's medical treatment systems, which have already realized secure and controllable data connectivity among some local medical institutions.

The project will look to address issues related to the information silos and data security that have troubled medical institutions for a long time in a low-cost and highly secure way.

"The blockchain pilot for Changzhou's medical treatment systems is the first blockchain application based on medical treatment scenarios in China," said Liu Tie, technical leader of Ali Health's blockchain technology.

The integration of the technology with medical treatment scenarios enables authorized doctors to quickly learn about a patient's medical history and health examination information, Liu said. This removes the need to repeat unnecessary basic examinations and makes treatment faster and cheaper.

"Ali Health's blockchain technology connects information by using our current equipment and systems," said Zhang Zhihong, director at Zhenglu Town Health Center in Changzhou. "It is cost effective and safe. With blockchain, health centers and district hospitals are interconnected so that the people can enjoy convenient medical services."

The blockchain is an underlying technical architecture of distributed databases. It uses technologies such as peer-to-peer, cryptology and consensus algorithms to ensure fairness, interconnectivity and privacy protection for each node that is connected to the blockchain network in data flows.

Ali Health will set up a number of data security nets for the Changzhou project. All the data will be stored and transferred in ciphertext with strict access controls and operational privileges. It will also feature traceable and tamper-proof technologies.

Ali Health is Alibaba Group's flagship platform in health care. At present, Ali Health's businesses are mainly focused on such fields as medical e-commerce, smart medical treatments and product tracing.