LifeLab’s Hack Jolts Canada; Proves the Criticality of Blockchain in Canadian Healthcare
LifeLab is a renowned name in some parts of Canada. Towards the end of 2019, they confessed that in a ransomware attack, the data of roughly 15 million patients was compromised, and the company had to pay ‘A HUGE’ sum to get the confidential information back.
What’s worth noticing is that the incident is not the only one of its type. A couple of months back, three hospitals in Ontario were also the subject of a major hack.
What Is Wrong with the Industry?
Patient safety and security should always hold the utmost importance when it comes to how hospitals and labs set their priorities and organize the structure. The methods on which these organizations retrieve and store data, how they use it to provide the best treatment possible for patients, and how they plan on protecting that information as well. However, since many labs utilize centralized technology, they are placing servers and database systems in the hands of a single entity. This, in short, means that if the integrity of the single system is compromised, so is the information of all the patients in that database.
What is the Solution?
As this poses a huge risk to the security of sensitive private information, many users feel that the patient should be in control of their medical information and use it at their discretion. The ability to share medical history with specialists of their choosing, gain second opinions, or even use their data for research should be up to the patient as opposed to being decided by hospital systems. Patients have a right to disclose and share their information as they see best fit as well is share in a portion of the rewards that come from that.
Medical Veda places emphasis on the ability of patients to retain the power in choosing how they access and share their information. There is no concept of a big centralized database that poses a substantial risk of being exposed or taken advantage. With patients having more control of their information, they can also choose to incentivise their sharing of data with laboratories and pharmaceutical companies by gaining monetary value. Interoperability is increased, and patients can take the proper steps and get questions answered properly as they take responsibility for their own medical information.
With more data circulating in this generation than any that has preceded it, we must take the proper steps to ensure our data is accurate, secure, and retrievable. In many instances, improper data storage places the safety of our patients and doctors in jeopardy.
Medical Veda’s solution ensures data breaches will never occur as we use blockchain technology to revolutionize traditional healthcare and how we protect our information. Therefore, the ecosystem not only affects the lives of our patients positively but makes the job of all healthcare professionals more direct and less stressful.
