QMUL — Blockchain for beginners
On the 23rd of February 2018, I was excited to present to an audience consisting almost entirely of medical professionals and students of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The audience had an in depth understanding of healthcare, and could relate to many of the scenarios I described during the presentation. It was thrilling to discuss the issues and complexities of healthcare, with those that have first-hand experience of practising medicine, within our less than perfect system.
Early on in my interactions with the audience, it became apparent that the majority remained unaware of how blockchain technology worked and the plethora of use cases that would benefit, doctors, patients and healthcare organisations. To address such knowledge gaps, I tailored my presentation to educate the audience on blockchain technology prior to explaining the use cases. I found that the audience responded particularly well when I demonstrated Anders Brownworth’s website, where blockchain is explained in easy to follow steps: www.anders.com/blockchain. Anders Brownworth co-taught the blockchain class at MIT.
If you have not yet had a chance to visit Anders’ website and you struggle with explaining blockchain to your friends or colleagues, I highly recommend you check it out and forward it on to everyone. Throughout my presentation it was fascinating to see people’s eyes light up as the penny dropped, revealing to them the possibilities that blockchain brings to the medical community. We discussed how Medicalchain facilitates better communication between health professionals and would improve patient-centred care and clinical outcomes. Organisational borders would cease to exist as it would be up to the individual patient to transport and share their records with each health professional via their mobile device. Finally, we discussed how together, we could reduce systematic errors that are currently contributing to fatalities by leveraging blockchain’s auditability and immutability.
It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with the medical student community and talk about the benefits of blockchain for healthcare. After my talk I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the audience to understand how I, as a doctor, became so involved with blockchain. The crowd themselves were an inspiration to both myself and my team to keep going no matter what! The display of appreciation shown here only strengthened my belief that there is a deeply felt passion for new technology and innovation in the healthcare space. We just need to keep up the hard work and continue to spread the Medicalchain message.
I look forward to delivering more educational talks to raise the profile and benefits of blockchain for healthcare across the world. Thank you to the MedTech QMBL committee for your invitation to speak at the Introduction to Blockchain event. On behalf of myself and my team, we applaud you for your commitment to exploring innovations to improve healthcare.
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