Blockchain is a game-changing technology, especially for secure data sharing among multiple parties, a crucial need in healthcare. Patient data privacy and security are critical, but improving care quality requires better coordination across fragmented healthcare systems. Blockchain can facilitate this by enabling secure data sharing, with patient consent, making it easier to apply analytics to medical data at a population level.
What is Blockchain, and How Does It Benefit Healthcare?
Blockchain technology is often misunderstood due to the hype around it, but its potential is immense. At its core, blockchain removes the need for central authorities to manage transactions between two parties, allowing them to interact securely and impartially without knowing or trusting each other. While Bitcoin is the most well-known blockchain application, the technology is now being explored in more traditional business environments.
One of blockchain’s key strengths is decentralization. This gives end-users, including healthcare organizations, more transparency and control over their data. In the long term, blockchain aims to decentralize data, reducing the dominance of tech giants like Google and Facebook. Users will have the ability to sell their data in exchange for crypto-tokens, and artificial intelligence (AI) will help match buyers and sellers by curating valuable datasets.
Blockchain’s most tangible applications today include solving specific challenges like data security, reliability, and accessibility in healthcare. It excels in areas like tracking, data transfer, identity authentication, and payment settlements, all while offering security and efficiency.
Key Blockchain Strengths in Healthcare
– Tracking & Registry: Blockchain records data immutably, ensuring transparency.
– Data Transfer: It simplifies the exchange of information between multiple parties.
– Identity Verification: Blockchain manages identities securely without exposing sensitive information.
– Settlement & Transactions: It enables real-time payments and settlements securely.
– Token Exchange: Blockchain can facilitate the exchange of tokens or digital currencies with intrinsic value, potentially revolutionizing financial transactions in healthcare.
How Does Blockchain Benefit Healthcare Businesses?
– Enhanced Security: Blockchain’s decentralized structure makes it resistant to cyberattacks and tampering.
– Cost Efficiency: By eliminating intermediaries, blockchain reduces transaction costs.
– Traceability: Blockchain creates a permanent record of transactions, reducing fraud.
– Process Speed: Automated smart contracts streamline transactions.
– Confidentiality: Collaboration between organizations can occur without sharing sensitive data.
– Neutral Ownership: No single entity controls the blockchain, which builds trust and ensures longevity.
Given the increasing challenges in managing medical records and ensuring transparency in supply chains, blockchain is becoming more essential in healthcare. Here are five key use cases:
1. Supply Chain Transparency
A major challenge in healthcare is ensuring the authenticity of medical goods, especially in regions where counterfeit drugs lead to thousands of deaths annually. Blockchain can track medical products from the manufacturing stage through every point in the supply chain, providing complete transparency.
Companies like MediLedger have developed blockchain protocols that allow stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain to verify the authenticity of medicines. In addition to verifying expiration dates and other key information, blockchain can optimize supply chains by integrating AI to predict demand more accurately.
– Key Benefits:
– Customer Confidence: Consumers can track the provenance of medical goods.
– Regulatory Compliance: Streamlined reporting for medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
– Supply Chain Optimization: AI can analyze data for better demand prediction and supply management.
2. Patient-Centric Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
One of the biggest issues in healthcare is the fragmentation of patient data across different systems. According to a study by Johns Hopkins University in 2016, medical errors, including poorly coordinated care, were the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
Blockchain can help solve this by creating a unified system where patient records are securely stored and accessible. Patients retain control of their data and can consent to share it with healthcare providers or researchers. Medicalchain is one company working on blockchain-enabled EHRs, which could revolutionize the management of patient data.
– Key Benefits:
– Patients can monitor updates to their medical records and control who accesses them.
– Medical insurers can receive verified service confirmations directly from patients, speeding up claims.
– More comprehensive patient records will enable personalized medicine by providing better data for analysis.
3. Smart Contracts for Insurance and Supply Chain Settlements
Blockchain-based smart contracts are already transforming healthcare. Companies like Chronicled and Curisium are using blockchain to authenticate organizational identities and log contract details, reducing disputes over payments and supply chain issues.
Shared digital contracts on a blockchain ledger can reduce disputes over drug pricing and insurance claims. Curisium estimates that 10% of medical insurance claims are disputed, and blockchain can help resolve these disputes faster and more accurately.
– Key Benefits:
– Fewer Disputes: Transparent contract terms reduce disputes over payment claims.
– Advanced Analytics: Easily accessible data can optimize health outcomes and costs.
4. Medical Staff Credential Verification
Blockchain can also streamline the credential verification process for healthcare professionals. U.S.-based ProCredEx uses blockchain to log the credentials of medical professionals, making the hiring process faster and more reliable for healthcare organizations.
– Key Benefits:
– Faster credentialing for hiring healthcare professionals.
– Healthcare institutions can monetize their data on staff credentials.
– Increased transparency for healthcare organizations and patients.
5. IoT Security for Remote Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring is on the rise, but securing these devices is a major challenge. Blockchain can help secure IoT devices by ensuring that patient data is only accessible to authorized parties and protecting the integrity of the data.
Blockchain’s decentralized nature allows IoT devices to communicate without relying on centralized servers, reducing the risk of cyberattacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. However, while blockchain holds promise for IoT security, these applications are still in early development.
– Key Benefits:
– Enhanced data security and privacy for IoT devices.
– Resilience against cyberattacks, ensuring reliability for critical devices.
Blockchain is gradually proving its worth in healthcare and pharmaceuticals by solving real-world issues like supply chain transparency, data management, and security. While some applications are still in their early stages, blockchain’s potential to revolutionize the industry is clear. As more solutions are developed and tested, healthcare will continue to see significant improvements in security, efficiency, and patient care.
Comments