What is Blockchain in Healthcare?

The consequences of the global pandemic are now wreaking havoc on healthcare services around the world. Due to the current, quickly changing health crisis, most countries were compelled to bolster their welfare programs. The healthcare sector has been a big frontline in the fight against the pandemic. Much in healthcare has lagged well behind technology in terms of the pace of implementation, making it seem stark.

However, technological advancements must now be accelerated to satisfy the demands of fighting off a pandemic, developing vaccines, and other ways to help the population recover, be safer, and healthier.  According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the current crisis precipitates a change in their report called “Impact of a Global Pandemic on Health Technology Assessment.”  

From on-demand diagnoses through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to mobile medical technology like wearable devices, we see new emerging technologies rise to the occasion to meet the demands of keeping us safe in the new normal.

One of these technologies coming into play in the healthcare industry is Blockchain technology. Let’s see what blockchain is in health care. 

We must start building trust today for tomorrow’s digital economy. Blockchain is one of those technologies that bring back consumer’s trust in systems and institutions because of its decentralized and transparent nature. Blockchain's importance will grow, providing greater confidence in secrecy, protection, transparent access to information, and faster communication. What is Blockchain in Healthcare? Let’s see what blockchain is and its benefits in health care. 

Blockchain Technology in Healthcare Operations

Blockchain is beneficial across different industries. It is a network that has been decentralized and democratized, with no central power control, or authority. A single person does not regulate it, and it is autonomous. 

Data in the blockchain system is cryptographically stored. Whatever is stored in the blockchain is unalterable. It prevents anyone from tampering or manipulating information. Lastly, blockchain is transparent, openly accessible, and trackable.

Blockchain is both a tamper-evident and tamper-resistant digital ledger. It is usually executed decentralized and without a single authority. At the most straightforward stage, the blockchain network ensures that no user transaction can be reversed until it is on the database.

While sometimes the terms "DLT" and "blockchain" are used interchangeably, this isn't the case.

Advantages and Issues with Blockchains in Healthcare

Patients may use blockchain technologies to set access rules for their medical data for a set time. Patients can connect to other hospitals and have their medical data automatically collected.

For the time being, public blockchains cannot store health information such as patient identifying details. The patient's safety considerations must be considered when providing patient healthcare. Blockchain may be challenging to use since this kind of data needs to be constantly modified. 

But through blockchain, medical fraud can be preventable as all transaction histories can be generated. Patients can view their data as well as the care services and medical providers they allow. The data can include medications given, treatments or surgeries done, results or progress. 

No matter how excellent blockchain technology is, no system is ever fool-proof. This technology opens the door to so-called "zero days" hacks and social engineering. So, as such, information management must be watched carefully in healthcare.

When blockchains are used in healthcare, they benefit from a decentralized administration, provenance, trackable data, and robust data, limiting access by requiring a patient's private key.

The healthcare implementation of blockchain is only getting started; however, it simplifies business processes and provides healthcare knowledge through disparate and disparate stakeholders.

Blockchain Applications in Healthcare

Imagine the blockchains can be applied in five different use cases like the bookkeeping features of electronic data processing, secure the privacy of healthcare records, conducting rigorous personal inventory and record-keeping, and providing "on-demand" the administration of genome records. Let’s look at other applications of Blockchain in healthcare. 

1.  Research

Electronic medical reports can only be updated automatically on each patient within a network or organization. The bulk of the information will be stored on the outermost layer of the blockchain.

It will open up even more avenues for academics and other groups of hundreds of thousands of patients. If such substantial data sets were available, clinical testing, safety incident, and public health monitoring would be significantly enhanced.

2.  Seamless switching of patients between providers

For an actual patient, it is often possible to grant access to and grant access to their health data with a shareable private key, which eliminates the complexity of developing new profiles for different health services or organizations. This could lead to the universal ability to use and distribute health information through various users and organizations.

3.  Faster, cheaper, better patient care

It will build a single infrastructure that documents health information that is safe and up to date for individual use and available on-demand to the whole organization. This strategy of sharing the treatment between healthcare providers avoids many errors that might be committed when working with the same patient. This provides the ability to develop and provide the appropriate care to each person.

4.  Interoperable electronic health records.

Instead of submitting multiple transaction sets, companies could use the blockchain to keep just one transaction data layer. Each one uses its exclusive private encryption to store its information alongside the public version of that data, with related structured information providing only one connection between the two.

In terms of smooth networking, using smart contracts and protocols that apply a single standard model to all users will come to play a crucial role.

5.  Data security

Over eight years, from 2009 to 2017, there have been 176 million data leaks of healthcare databases. With encrypted features, such as those used in blockchain, personal health information is more protected than existing alternatives. The user has a public key and a private key that can be opened for a given amount of time and only one user at a time.

Anecdotally unrestricted access to a user's personal information may also prove problematic as hacking must be performed on a person-by-by-person basis to be effective. This means that blockchains will serve as an unalterable audit trail of health data.

Blockchain is a Game-Changer in Healthcare

With the potential to make it simpler, build loyalty and eliminate bureaucracy, provide trustless communication, and the ability to encrypt knowledge that cannot be altered, blockchain is game-changing in healthcare. 

The health sector should not be fearful of change since the administration is correct to keep up with the times by keeping track of this constantly developing environment to discover funding sources required for the technology's maximum potential. 

Technological trends in healthcare can save lives. Better technologies like blockchain and many others provide better healthcare to billions of people, most of whom are under stay-at-home orders as of the moment. They also help healthcare services deal with the pandemic's massive demands.

The benefits of blockchain will only continue to be evident. People will continue to resort to technological innovations such as this to preserve the human touch without compromising the accuracy and quality of healthcare.

Access to the best medical providers, even in rural areas, will save lives as quality healthcare reaches remote areas through technological innovations. Blockchain makes it possible for doctors, medical practitioners, and even patients in rural or remote areas to access pertinent data or records safely and accurately. 

Getting healthcare accessible anywhere and for everyone can be a considerable undertaking, but we need to embark on it because it is the future of healthcare.  

Blockchain technology is becoming increasingly popular as companies and businesses seek improved cryptography systems.

Blockchain adds blocks to deter cyber criminals and bots from conducting data privacy breaches and malware attacks. Whether you are a business person or an individual user searching for more secured networks, we need to be aware of new cyber threats to fight off in 2021 and how we fight the attacks, even in a blockchain system.

Author bio: Mayleen Meñez handled to work in media before discovering her authentic passion in the NGO profession, travelling the Philippines and Asia achieving so. She homeschools three lovely kids and loves reinventing Filipino recipes. She is a content writer for Softvire Australia and Softvire New Zealand.