Hyperledger, a collaborative cross-industry effort focused on blockchain technology, has announced that Change Healthcare, one of the largest healthcare IT companies in the United States, has joined as a premier member of the project, becoming the healthcare organization to join at the top membership level.

The announcement was made at Consensus 2017 hosted by CoinDesk in New York. As a premier member, Change Healthcare CTO Aaron Symanski will join the Hyperledger Governing Board.

“We couldn’t be happier to welcome Change Healthcare as a Premier member,” said Hyperledger Executive Director, Brian Behlendorf. “Their expertise and global reach is sure to be a huge asset, as we continue to bring the community together to advance open blockchain tools and services for healthcare and various other industries.”

Hyperledger aims to create common distributed ledger technology that enables organizations to build and run robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions. It has grown to more than 140 members which includes the likes of IBM, ANZ, Accenture, Intel, JPMorgan, Intel and Thomson Reuters. It also counts the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston among its associate members.

“Blockchain is a promising and exciting new technology for secure online transactions,” said Aaron Symanski, CTO, Change Healthcare. “But it’s crucial that healthcare leaders step up to champion innovation to help take blockchain from its early implementations to tomorrow’s healthcare IT solutions. I look forward to collaborating with Hyperledger members to help develop an open, distributed ledger technology that makes financial interoperability work better in healthcare and beyond.”

The open blockchain initiative such kicked off a Healthcare Working Group last October that has grown to more than 425 technologists and executives.