Could Blockchain Be The Cure-All For Healthcare Systems?

By Sean Fitzjohn on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

Published in

The Dark Side

6 min readNov 2, 2018

Whether you’re neck-deep into the Blockchain space, or a mere observer from the outside looking in, the hype surrounding its potential has definitely been apparent. For better or for worse, hype cycles are natural for all forms of nascent technologies, and we have seen this ebb-and-flow manifest itself in everything from Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, to the birth of the internet and its subsequent dot-com bubbles.

While 2018 has seen the hype for Blockchain and cryptocurrencies wane, bear markets provide a good opportunity for industry, investors and innovators to properly reflect on the true potential of the technology without the tempting distraction of incessantly checking price charts.

There has been no shortage of new proof-of-concepts and unique use-cases. Particularly interesting ones I’ve seen this year include non-fungible token platforms, decentralised solar power, and turkey provenance tracking (I’m not joking).

As interesting as many of these new and emerging use-cases are, one industry I am particularly interested in seeing Blockchain’s potential unfold in is actually healthcare. Here’s why.

Today’s healthcare systems are riddled with problems

1) Ageing populations are on the rise

According to a 2015 report by the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs, “between 2015 & 2030, those aged over 60 years will grow by 56%”. Ageing populations are already a massive concern in Japan, Italy, Greece and Portugal to name just a few, and are causing incredible stress on their healthcare systems.

Simply put, the higher the ageing population, the greater the demand for healthcare. In order for governments to keep up with this rising demand, more budget and resources have to be allocated to their healthcare systems. Training more doctors and nurses alone is not nearly sustainable enough as an action plan to combat this growing problem.

2) Record keeping is dangerously insecure and inefficient

The sharing of patient data across institutions is cumbersome, even in 2018.

Currently, patient records are a manual process stored both physically and digitally, both of which are susceptible to theft, manipulation and breach.

Healthcare systems are easy targets for cybercriminals, and weaponized ransomware technology is evolving at an alarming rate. Additionally, misconfigured cloud storage buckets and phishing emails are repeat offenders in the current healthcare system.

Patient data in its current state are held across multiple institutions in ‘legacy silos’, and in various formats and standards, which renders the sharing of data a rather cumbersome process, and makes for a slow and poor user experience for professionals.

Why is Blockchain the answer to healthcare’s pitfalls?

When discussing security, Blockchain potentially holds a lot of the answers we seek to combat fraud, theft and manipulation.

Open access to patient data can be resolved using a Blockchain solution. Due to the immutable properties of a distributed ledger, access can be conditionally limited to just healthcare providers, and packaged into ‘blocks’ that will form the permanent record of a patient. Once these blocks are stored on the ledger along with a time-stamped audit trail, patient data can be encrypted onto the Blockchain.

So what does this mean? Essentially, moving all existing and future data off traditional systems and onto a decentralized ledger means that all patient records could be rendered virtually tamper-proof and out of the hands of cybercriminals.

Blockchain solutions also offer healthcare professionals and higher control over their data, and largely removes the inefficiencies associated with current data management practices. For instance, Blockchain-based identity management systems can potentially remove the need for manual issuance, verification and the storing of sensitive patient data.

The transformative effect of Blockchain 3.0 protocols like Metabase

In a nutshell, Metabase is geared toward helping entrepreneurs, small to medium businesses, enterprises and government leverage a multidimensional blockchain platform to build innovative dApps and smart business solutions. The problems inherent in conventional healthcare systems are of particular interest to them to tackle, for their flexible and user-friendly system that could be easily adopted by the public sector.

One particular feature I like about Metabase is also how it is programming-language-agnostic, and houses its own integrated identity systems which could prove very attractive for healthcare tech-solutions, where ID management plays a core role.

“At the core of Metabase will be the Virtual Machine 2.0 with an augmented OpCode Space — unleashing a rich programming ecosystem which enables programming on high and low level programming languages for end users and organizations with integrated identity systems within the core blockchain.” — Metabase Whitepaper

Additionally, a Blockchain 3.0 protocol like Metabase that houses a Smart OpCodes platform could be a game changer to effectively enable patients to monetize their own health data for research purposes. Smart Opcodes platforms allow users to monetize smart contract libraries via a user-friendly interface.

Adoption plays a vital role in any self-respecting Blockchain protocol, and the fact they are focusing on ease-of-use by following in the UX footsteps of Adobe and Wordpress may just be the point-of-difference this project needs to break into widespread industry applications such as healthcare. With a solid track record of helping Blockchain clients and ICO’s get off the ground, the team at Intrepid Ventures, who are also the creators of Metabase, will be one project I’ll be keeping my eye on.

Conclusion

While the promise of the technology is indeed exciting, and Blockchain 3.0 protocols could very well be the catalyst to Blockchain adoption in healthcare, Hyperledger conducted a survey and found that 42.9% of healthcare organizations state that interoperability (the ability for data to be transferred across multiple blockchains) will be a key factor to speeding up adoption. It is currently unknown if Metabase will be pushing for interoperability, but interestingly, 28.6% of those surveyed feel that they are ready to use Blockchain in the current healthcare climate.

With the world entering the cusp of overpopulation, coupled with the ever-growing ageing population, it will be imperative for humanity to find and implement a significant solution to alleviate the inevitable strain on our healthcare systems. While the road ahead is long and full of twists and turns, implementing Blockchain solutions could be the first step to achieving success.

What are your thoughts on Blockchain 3.0 platforms like Metabase and their potential to solve the pitfalls that exist in our current healthcare systems?

Want to learn more about Metabase? Click here.