Blockchain technology has been the talk of the block for quite some time now. It has taken a variety of the globe’s industries by storm over the course of recent years, while at the same time building up a large amount of hype, for healthcare included.
Blockchain technology works as a decentralized system that stores transactional records in interconnected blocks. This is where miners and cryptography come into play.
Blockchain technology in healthcare can positively effect the whole industry in different ways. Here we will look at the uses of the tech and how it intertwines with healthcare.
Blockchain Technology in Healthcare: What Is It? Many of the current issues experienced by the healthcare industry can be absolved with the help of Blockchain technology. They are related to medical data (security, interoperability, accessibility), medical research, clinical trials, medical supply chain, and drug integrity. Such issues can cause problems even in the top healthcare companies.
Blockchain can change healthcare because of its ability to provide unprecedented data efficiency. Besides, it provides data access flexibility, interconnection, transparency, and security. Blockchain technology and healthcare go together well. Let’s see how the healthcare industry can improve with the help of Blockchain technology solutions.
Blockchain Use Cases in the Healthcare Sector
The uses of Blockchain technology in healthcare primarily revolve around managing data. Due to the nature of the technology, it can aid in improving the whole healthcare IT industry, in addition to facilitating faster access to data and interoperability on a universal scale.
Use of Healthcare Data and How It Can Benefit from Blockchain- Health data management
Patient medical data can vary from facility to facility. Every time a patient enters a new clinic, a medical card is created for said patient and is stored in a specific facility. This data is usually incomplete to the public eye and is filled with information recorded by the caregivers at the facility in question. This means that medical professionals in other facilities need to create new patient data cards. Most often, newly added information is redundant, leading to wasted time, which is a critical mishap when it comes to healthcare. It is also important to note that specific doctors need specific data in most cases.
Blockchain and healthcare can bandage data management issues easily. The tech can create Blockchain medical records accessible and identical the world over. Patients could always have access to their health and treatment records when needed, and doctors as well. The use of Blockchain for medical records is closer upon us than it seems.
- Clinical trials
In the health care sector, clinical trials are done to determine the efficiency of certain treatments, with the end goal of curing or providing a partial remedy for a given illness. Over the course of these trials, researchers record and store data on test results, individual statistics, patient reports, and other factors. One clinical trial can yield a lot of data, which can be quite difficult to track. Additionally, this data can be stolen, corrupted, hidden, or, as mentioned before, erased by a natural disaster. It is also not uncommon for researchers to fudge data here and there to prove a point.
This is where Blockchain and healthcare play well: through the use of the tech, the true authenticity of any document is confirmable. Thus, data recorded during clinical trial processes can always be approved for authenticity, while researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and legislators can be confident in data accuracy. Blockchain technology could introduce greater transparency and accountability to clinical trials. The same goes for every aspect of the healthcare sector.
- Tracking the flow of services
There are quite a few issues when it comes to the flow of services in the healthcare sector, especially insurance and medical fraud, claims, and donations. Insurance fraud can spill into the billions of dollars. Medical fraud, such as under or overtreatment, can claim lives and also ring up billions. Donations to medical campaigns can end up in the wrong hands and are often covered by a blanket of poor transparency. The inefficient way in which health data is currently stored leads to significant funds lost trying to figure out treatments issued, care received, by whom, and when.
Blockchain tech to the rescue. All events can be evaluated for authenticity, from insurance claims to care provided.
- IoT in Healthcare
Bed occupancies in emergency rooms, remote and accurate monitoring of health, inventory, patients, staff, and medical device availability - the tracking of the aforementioned items is improvable through the use of Blockchain in healthcare and IoT.
The confidence provided by a Blockchain would allow medical care providers to be certain that medical devices are available when needed. Doctors would also have an easier time tracking patients and responding to health-related events across a distance. The tracking of temperatures within patient rooms, bed usage, and supply availability are improvable by intertwining Blockchain and healthcare.
There are many benefits to draw from implementing Blockchain technology in healthcare. Here
https://mlsdev.com/blog/blockchain-and-healthcare-use-cases-today-and-in-the-future you can get more details on the uses of Blockchain in healthcare and how it benefits in this industry.
