[Technology in the Healthcare industry] - Crypto Academy / S4W3 [Homework Post for professor @yohan2on]

Good evening everyone how are you all. This week we were taught an interesting topic by professor @yohan2on which involves the amalgamation of the Blockchain and the Healthcare Industry. This would be my assignment post.

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Introduction

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Healthcare Industry is one of the most important industry for any country, be it a contributing factor in the GDP or be it for mass public. Taking into consideration the current situation of the world in which we're going through a mass Pandemic, we finally realised how faulty our healthcare Industry actually is.

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I'm a doctor in Pakistan, and can tell this by my first hand experience. We have many limitations associated to the Healthcare industry and the technology that is essential for the healthcare to sustain. Though the most important sector, I believe it is criminally under developed.

We have data system hacks taking place in the healthcare industry. There is no proper data quality and supervision of the patients and the Healthcare workers. This might seem like a minor complication but it actually is the underlying reason of our crumbling healthcare system.

Due to poor data integration, no P2P services, Centralization and less secured and less privacy we have to face tons of issues on daily basis, some of which are:

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• Patient Mistreatment and Mismanagement: One of the most occurring issue associated to poor data handling is the Patient Mistreatment. With no proper system staff has to manually deal with the patients.

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• Less efficiency: to err is human. It is not logically possible for anyone to not make any mistakes. When things come to the healthcare industry, even a small mistake, such as wrong database entry can cost a human life.

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• Costly: This is the point that each and everyone of us would conform with. The healthcare industry is unnecessarily expensive, and I am saying this with First Hand experience as a Doctor

We have an unnecessary outdated intermediary system which require a lot of revenue to sustain. This is a major issue.

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• Centralized Policy Making: with so much decision making under a single authoritative management, there are wrong decisions being made due to data inaccuracies, mismanaged databases and no proper transparency system.

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Blockchain Technology

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Blockchain Technology as we all know by now is a secured decentralized Distributed Ledger Technology, in which the information is stored in the form of blocks. The information stored in the blocks has Cryptographic security and the immutability and the transparency of the information prevails due to this. There is no 3rd Party involvement in the Blockchain Technology and all the transactions are public which further increases the transparency of the system.

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Now one might wonder if there are actual possible solutions of the issues associated to the healthcare industry by amalgamation of the Blockchain Technology to it? Lets discuss below.

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Practical Applications of Blockchain Technology into the Healthcare Industry

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• Encrypted Smart Mobile Clinics

Mobile Clinics or more commonly known as Ambulances. Since this is a Research based Assignment and Professor @yohan2on asked for creativity, I saw no one yet discuss this point so here I am.

In a country Like Pakistan, which is an undeveloped country, there are a lots of issues associated with the ambulance service. Most concerning issue with the ambulance service is the use of ambulances for illegal activities, like supply of drugs and money. Due to this the efficiency of ambulance service has decreased significantly as well as raised an alarming situation.

The amalgamation of the Blockchain Technology to this niche, brings a proper system of tracking the ambulances from the hospitals to the designated places. The management would have transparency and full Visibility of the ambulances which are being dispatched. With encrypted ambulance service, the patient to ambulance interaction would also be enhanced as the Blockchain network would provide a peer to peer service.

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• Electronic Health Records

As mentioned, the healthcare industry is already grappling with maintaining health records of patients.

There was a research conducted in the best Medical University of the world, ie, John Hopkins in 2016, which stated that the medical errors were the third leading cause of deaths in the United States.

source

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To overcome this deadly issue I think the introduction of the Blockchain technology in the healthcare system is the need of the hour. The Blockchain network would be connected to the medical records of the patients. Any prescription, or doctor's appointment or lab results should be added to the network in the form of an encrypted hash function which could be Decrypted by that only specific person, the patient. Doing this, we would have an excellent form of medical records of all the patients and even if there are any changes to the prescriptions, it would be added to the network in the form of transactions.

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• Research Work

To excel in the healthcare industry one of the most important point is the Research based work. By Adding the Blockchain Technology in this niche would ease the researchers to be able to use the data in an organised immutable form which would facilitate them in their work. They could have history of patients on the network which would help them sufficiently in the research based thesis.

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• Better Patient Care

When I say better patient care it includes all of the factors which are: Good peer to peer services, Faster work and at cheaper rates. Through Blockchain Technology we can have a proper system which stores the data with transparency, the data would be updated patient to patient which will help the personals in having faster and efficient treatments.

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• Efficient Security Protocols

According to a research there were more than 176 million data breaches worldwide associated to the healthcare industry. With the security of the Blockchain Technology there would be an extra layer of security and reliability. The patients on the network would have access to all their records by themselves without the involvement of any third parties, which will keep their records safe as well as they will have faster treatments as well.

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• Drug Supply Chain

This sector of the healthcare industry needs to be revamped the most in my opinion. With manipulation of the medical drugs which are being used for illegal purposes has raised an alarming situation for the Officials.

With the use of the Blockchain Technology in this sector we can easily track drugs. We can know the mobility if the drugs from their manufacturing to the supply chain of pharmacies, stores and patients. This will benefit both the healthcare industry as they will have knowledge of their drug supply ss well as the patients who will have complete transparency of the drugs they are buying.

This is as I say, the need of the hour as there have been countless deaths due to mismanaged prescriptions.

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With all these practical Applications of the Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry lets have a comparison of the issues faced with the healthcare industry and the solutions the Blockchain Technology provides to it.

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Elements	Prevalent Healthcare Industry	Blockchain Solutions
Data Immutability	medical personnel making errors in the databases is a concerning issue	encrypted hash functions would make this an easy task for both, the physicians as well as patients.
Security of Data	there have been countless cases of data hacks in the healthcare industry	the immutable and transparent nature of the Blockchain Technology would make it very difficult to breach the data bases
Work load	no proper data base system. Things are done manually increasing the chances of errors.	Easily traceable work system where everything is encrypted.

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Blockchain Projects in the Healthcare Industry

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We are already witnessing some major hallmarks in the healthcare industry with the introduction of Blockchain Technology to it. Lets see some of them below.

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• FarmaTrust

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FarmaTrust works for the betterment of the Supply chain issue associated with the Healthcare Industry. It capacitates different pharmaceutical companies to authenticate the medicines and the prescriptions, furthermore the expiry dates of the medicines as well.

The prevailing issue of counterfeited drugs in the industry is also being dealt by FarmaTrust

The company is able to do this by interlinking the manufacturers, suppliers, companies and the pharmacies in a network. There is an Automated Law Enforcement notification on the network whenever there is any issue.

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Source

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• MediBloc

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source

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MediBloc provides a single data base and a distribution channel for the feasibility of the patients. MediBloc Blockchain, ie, Panacea gives the patients a safe, secured, private and a well grounded way to store and secure their medical data.

In the latest development of the platform, a Medipass application was launched which allows patients to have access to their insurance claims and medical records.

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• DentaCoin

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source

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This is the first Blockchain project which facilitates dentists and their patients. On this platform the patients can have dentists of their choice and they can review them as well. The patients leave reviews of their dentists through which they get rewarded and due to which the dentists increase their work efficiency as well.

The rewarding system is conducted through the DentaCoin (DCN) which is an ERC20 Token

The exchange, storage and transfer of DCN can be done in Lumi Wallet

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• EncrypGen

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source

You have your DNA checked and you want to make some money by selling data? Well do not worry as EncrypGen has you covered. EncrypGen offers people who have done a DNA test to sell their data

EncrypGen then links the data to labs and pharmaceutical companies, who register themselves as buyers and buy the data which helps them in the research work.

EncrypGen has their own token known as the DNA which can be stored and transferred in the Lumi Wallet

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• Robomed

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source

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Robomed works on providing better Electronic Medical Record feasibility to the patients. The motto of RoboMed is to provide a sole universal centre of care.

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CONCLUSION

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The introduction of the Blockchain Technology in the healthcare industry has been a turning point of this industry. Keeping in mind all the complexities involved within the healthcare industry, such as data hacking, non efficient treatments and diagnosis. Slow procedures and minimal security are handled by the Blockchain Technology now. The Blockchain Technology with its uses has been able to overcome almost all of the complications in the healthcare industry.

Providing encrypted data bases, more transparency, adding an extra layer if security and providing efficient and quick services has facilitated the patients a lot. It is only a matter of time that all of the healthcare industry would be interlinked to the Blockchain Technology.

The Blockchain platforms such as rhe FarmaTrust which is focusing on drug supply chain or the DentaCoin platform which focuses on Dentists and their patients or MediBloc which stresses on the betterment of the patients. All of these projects are actively been working on the betterment of the mass public.

This has been an interesting lecture professor @yohan2on
Thank you

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Regards,
@huzaifanaveed1

Grammar checked from Grammarly