How Blockchain Can Improve The Health Sector?
By Andrey Sergeenkov on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
The Conventional frameworks in the healthcare system today are evidently from the stakes of security breaches being too high — not just in monetary terms and losses to industry providers but also to patients whose personal information is at risk.
When considering about blockchain technology in a pivotal industry affecting the lives of innocent people such as the medical industry, many questions may be raised. The blockchain platform is well known for its adaptability and massive potential, so now probably you are wondering, can it be the ultimate solution for the revolution of the health sector.
Well, let us find out.
Challenges Experienced In The Health Sector
Majority of us have been caught up in the helter-skelter of a hospital environment from getting an appointment, verifying insurance, and hunting down medical records. Going to the doctors can be a hassle. For healthy patients that only see one doctor for standard and preventive routine checks, the current arrangement simply works for them.
However, in critical situations that involves life and death, a person may require an emergency procedure or surgery in a medical facility that does not have access to the patients records, list of medications and underlying health conditions, waiting to receive sufficient data can waste a lot of time that would have been used for catering to the causality.
After the healthcare institution gains access to a client’s medical history data, it remains permanently in the possession of the provider. Therefore patient history is at risk of manipulation.
Despite the fact that we are living in an advanced world, the present medical frameworks regularly expect patients to acquire and share their medical records as physical paper duplicates, or they are put away inside a single framework. These duplicates may get lost or be stolen. You need to monitor each and every bit of paper since no one can tell when somebody will demand it from you. Even the computer systems can be hacked.
Drug traceability is a prominent issue. According to the World Health Organization, one in ten drugs around the world is a fake one. This implies a huge number of individuals are in peril of taking medicine which may hurt them or even kill them. Then there is an issue of data veracity in clinical preliminaries. Before each medication ends up on drug store racks, it is subject to fastidious scrutiny. Trials are cumbersome and entail accumulation of multifaceted information. If a researcher loses it or frauds it, this spells inconvenience.
How Does Blockchain Come In?
Different healthcare organizations can securely share patients’ medical records with one another, regardless of their location. All patients’ data are readily already within the network and the other doctor can access them using your key. This incorporates data on your current state, and also your entire medical history.
A blockchain platform which operates on smart contracts can help address drug traceability, as each transaction is both immutable and timestamped. This implies that all parties involved with the supply chain network are granted access to the data and can verify it on the blockchain. If someone spots a dodgy detail, it is easy to trace its origin.
The technology can provide proof-of-existence for any document and allow anyone to verify the authenticity of a document. Adopting blockchain can also address many of the problems that drive up costs and decrease efficiency for medical professionals, explicitly when it comes to administrative costs.
Trends In The Medical World
According to the 2017 Global Health Industry Trends Survey conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), among the top 20 trends in 2017, Wearable Health Devices have maintained its position for the second year round. It has helped numerous persons in the monitoring of their health status through exercising.
To Cap Up
Blockchain could have the biggest impact in healthcare by the empowerment of health outcomes that cover a wide scope from the patient’s genetic profile, their demographic and financial status, their choice of lifestyle that may impact their wellbeing, to their response to various treatments.
Blockchain technology holds great assurance with regards to the healthcare industry, and it is the ideal time for all suppliers and researchers to explore its potential. Through research by IBM, over half of the healthcare executive’s overview said they were progressing in the direction of implementing a commercial blockchain application in the next couple of years. Thus, it is only a matter of time before blockchain and healthcare work hand in hand.
