Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare industry-Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4, Week 3|Advanced Course|Homework Post for @yohan2on
Blockchain is defined from a literal perspective to mean "blocks" connected together in form of "chains". It is also called a digital distributed ledger technology; its can keep records of data or transactions on its large database. It was initially developed in 2008 to server as an underpin for the operation of Bitcoin (cryptocurrency) by a man named Satoshi Nakamoto.
Initially, its application was largely confined to the finance industry but now it is been adopted by the healthcare industry, manufacturing industry, insurance firms, agricultural firms and even the travel industry. My focus is for this post is the healthcare industry which among many other problems is primarily faced with the challenge of managing health related data.
Due to the need to always access patient data or keep their records. The conventional system of doing that is often times consuming and very cumbersome. Blockchain technology is being promoted as a more efficient means managing medical records and sharing sensitive informations across various health platform with ease and privacy.
The security of patient data is also another challenge facing the healthcare industry, although most of these data are now being kept or stored on computer with a central location yet they are very susceptible to cyber attacks.
Blockchain can either be permissioned or non-permissioned, as the name implies for permissioned blockchain technology; each participant has it's own unique identity whereas in the case of non-permissioned Blockchain technology any of the users can use the blockchain at any time.
Therefore, each key player in the healthcare industry can decide the type of blockchain to adopt for confidentiality, accountability, authentication and data sharing. Also, under broader categories are two major types of blockchain technology:
1.Public blockchain: Public Blockchain is also known as the internet it holds cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and help ease peer-to-peer transactions.
2.Private blockchain: this is an intranet it runs on private blockchain platforms (Blockchain as a service Baas) like Ethereum.
The current blockchain applications been used in health sector includes:
Healthchain technology was developed by IBM Blockchain group. It function under the permissioned Blockchain. It's facilitate data protection and scalability. It's also accommodate smart contracts.
Ancile and MedRec: These are also similar in functions to the healthcain technology but they are built on the Ethereum ecosystem.
in the health sector
Manage Medical Data
Do you too large clinical trials or laboratory test, patient medical records and massive medical research. There are no more data to deal with in the health industry. The aim of blockchain technology in this case will be to give concise, secure, and comprehensive health records for either patient or medical consultant.
Conventionally, most patient have no control over their own personal data, many health care facilities share patient's medical record manually or with few electronically.With blockchain technology, petients can own their records and access it with ease. It can also help medical practitioners to assemble medical data and disseminated them faster in a more secure and transparent way.
Drug Development
Doing drug or vaccine development, a minimum of three clinical trials are usually carried out which we involve dealing with large data sets. The adoption of blockchain technology will help to ease data analysis and sharing of such data with proper regulatory or approval agency.
The security of such data can also be guaranteed because blockchain technology will allow uniform protection across all phases of the process involved. It will also help the public to follow the process involve in making the drug in a transparent manner. This will therefore remove the fear associated with the introduction of a new drug or vaccine to the society.
Counterfeit drugs is also a major challenge of the pharmaceutical industry especially in developing countries. Companies loses millions of dollars every year to counterfeiting.
Through blockchain technology individual can scan or verify the drugs before buying it. This is because blockchain technology prosesses authentication abilities. Feedback about the effect of the drug when it is been administered on different patient can also be collated on the Blockchain database and used for future statistics.
Security of Medical Records/Data
Blockchain technology are secured through the encryption of data. This makes patient information very secure and can prevent it from the activity of hackers.
Socioeconomic Database
social economic database is important in policy development for public health industry. It also guide government on areas needing intervention. Taking advantage of the blockchain technology, it is very easy to produce public health data over long period of time especially those involving large population of people.
Financial Record Keeping
A lot of financial fraud are taking place in the conventional system thereby reducing revenue generation for the industry. Blockchain technology will help end many issues that usually arise from payment processing or forged transactions. The payment system will make use of decentralized record and smart contract which are attribute of the blockchain technology. These two apparatus mentioned above we ensure transaction address identification, identity verification and traceability.
Organ Transplant
Organtree is a decentralized blockchain technology that help in organ transplant. It helps to facilitate organ donation to patients faster and simpler. This is because organ transplant require high level of speed because most of these organs deteriorate very quickly as such donated organs must be quickly given to a patient in need with a compatible blood type.
Blockchain technology can easily be use to match donor to receiver. The United Arab Emirate happens to be the first country to adopt AI and blockchain technology in organ transplant. This has been a big boost in organ transplant. The adoption of blockchain technology has also improve efficiency in organs verification before
transplant.
As we all know that transparency is one of the hallmark of blockcain technology. This attribute can also be a disadvantage in the sense that anybody can just assess the Blockchain Ledger for patient information. These rises data privacy issues because unauthorised persons can have access to sensitive patient health information.
Technically, blockchain technology is still evolving and it's application in the health sector is still at infant stage. Blockchain technology is also known to consume large computing power in terms of transaction processing and software implementation. The technology also need to improve in terms of handling multi-dimensional data, graphs, images and complex text.
Permission blockchain technology should be encouraged for healthcare industry so that anybody that wants to access the records of patience information most provide his or her identity before gaining access.
This internet revolution through blockchain technology has made its way into almost every sector of the economy and the health sector is not an exception. Therefore, it is of great necessity to harness the possibilities in blockchain technology to solve the many challenges plaguing the healthcare sector.
Thank you for reading my post.
Hi @gboye1
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This is good content. Thanks for taking to research on the possible applications of Blockchain in the health care industry.
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