Introduction
Blockchain has proven to be a technological breakthrough that will aid businesses in their shift to increased efficiency and security. According to a PwC poll of 600 Executives conducted in 2018, 84 percent of respondents’ firms are actively engaging with distributed ledgers.
In healthcare, Blockchain is all about cutting away the middlemen. It’s about enhancing the security of different healthcare transactional processes while reducing bureaucracy and manual inefficiencies, boosting service quality, and decentralizing patient data.
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a cryptographically linked decentralized list of digital records. A ‘block’ is a single record. Every block has a cryptographic hash of the preceding block, which is a mathematical technique, as well as a timestamp and transaction data. Blockchain was created as a secure open ledger for recording digital transactions that is administered by a peer-to-peer network.
Traditional Blockchain technology has been linked to Cryptocurrencies in the past. When the price of Bitcoin rose from $900 to $20,000 in December 2017, it gained widespread attention. The current pricing is hovering around $50,000 in 2022.
Blockchain in Healthcare
However, there’s a catch: Blockchain isn’t only for Cryptocurrencies. In reality, as a secure public ledger, Blockchain is exactly what the healthcare business requires.
According to HIPAA, at least one data breach of healthcare records occurred every day in 2018. Between 2009 and 2018, data breaches exposed the healthcare records of more than 59 percent of the US population.
Health businesses should consider using Blockchain technology in the age of data security. There’s a lot more to it than just transactions’ — Blockchain is about securely sharing data that was previously thought to be difficult to obtain.
Critical Areas to target in healthcare w.r.t. Blockchain
From patient medical histories to medicine formulas, healthcare is driven by data, particularly sensitive patient information. If you’ve ever moved medical records or had an insurance dispute, you know how difficult it is to share such information.
Medical treatments have improved over time, yet disseminating knowledge remains a significant barrier. What if there was an easy and secure method to communicate medical data?
Blockchain technology promises to provide a solution to that issue in five major areas:
1. Health Information Exchanges
Patients should have complete data transparency while navigating healthcare providers and systems.
What Blockchain can do for you: The Blockchain can provide a shared consent method that is easily accessible. Patients might use such a tool to make informed, transparent decisions about which providers and businesses have access to their medical data. Similarly, the approach may make it easier for healthcare professionals and organizations to select which data they can utilize fast.
2. Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are plagued by poor patient recruitment and participation, as well as excessive costs.
What Blockchain can do for you: Managers might gain more information using Blockchain's shared consent mechanism, allowing them to initiate clinical trials with a more targeted population, lowering clinical expenses and improving patient outcomes.
The trial process might be streamlined by Blockchain, making monitoring, analysis, and gathering more efficient. Clinical trials can also save time and money by employing Blockchain to collect real-time patient data for reporting and regulatory compliance.
3. Drug Manufacturing
Detecting and tracking counterfeit drugs has gotten more difficult and expensive.
What Blockchain can do for you: The potential of Blockchain to maintain a precise, unalterable record of system transactions might help trace medications along the supply chain, reducing mistakes and improving safety.
4. Autologous Therapies
The manufacturing and supply-chain operations for CAR T-cell and related medicines require sensitive patient information.
What Blockchain can do for you: Blockchain’s visibility, security, and data openness may reduce the time, cost, and efficacy of bringing these medicines to market.
5. Medical Claims
The medical system is plagued with duplicate and erroneous data due to the scattered structure of providers. Meanwhile, insurers must deal with claims verification and processing, which necessitates extensive involvement from policyholders and suppliers. As a result, there are more mistakes, more costs, and a greater risk of fraud and mismanagement.
What Blockchain can do for you: Blockchain can provide an irrefutable record of healthcare transactions, including detailed information on what financial remuneration was sought and received by all parties. This may significantly reduce mistakes and fraud while also laying the groundwork for truly value-based healthcare.
Why is Blockchain Challenging to Adapt?
· Despite the numerous benefits that Blockchain provides, healthcare businesses face the following challenges: Blockchain is a relatively young technology that has a history with Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency. Some medical research communities are suspicious about Blockchain’s application to their area since many people equate it with Bitcoin.
· Every institution involved in patient care and medical research must be on board and willing to adapt to the various changes that this new technology will necessitate in order for Blockchain to work.
· How will patients who are unconscious supply the security key required to access their files? Potential alternatives include medical bands with biometric security.
· Blockchain may have problems handling huge data sets (such as MRI and CAT scan pictures) in a single transaction due to its ledger history. As a result, huge files will need to be stored and tracked in backend repositories and encoded libraries.
· Because Blockchain doesn’t permanently remove or replace changed records — rather, it merely adds additional blocks to the chain — the demand for more storage is rising, posing both financial and technological issues.
· There must be a method to incorporate Blockchain into healthcare systems without introducing additional procedures for already overworked healthcare staff when entering data.
Summary
Healthcare is about to undergo a digital change. We’ve accomplished a lot in the previous decade, but now we’re entering a new phase in which technology will be utilized to enhance clinicians’ capabilities and allow them to practice at the highest level of their license. Not simply by dealing with more patients, but also by dealing with them more effectively and efficiently. Blockchain’s unique capacity to both preserve and retain personal data in a flexible manner might be the key to enabling healthcare to keep up with the times.
Blockchain might give us with a framework to safely preserve healthcare’s exciting future as a delivery system that can assure proper encryption and security.
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Like other businesses, if you too are looking for IT Solutions for Healthcare Services, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have significant experience over the years working with Healthcare IT Companies. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom healthcare solutions for our global clients over the years.
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