National Doctors’ Day: Blockchain in Healthcare

Blockchain is the crown jewel of this new era.

The latest buzz-word in the technological arena is ‘Blockchain’. Blockchain will form the backbone of several different Spheres of Life — from banking and secure communications to healthcare and ride-sharing. Of course, to be able to appreciate how blockchain will impact the world around you, you need to first understand what the blockchain technology is and what makes it so unique.

Blockchain is not owned by any central person or authority. Rather, a system composed of many personal computers stores information, thus leaving no room for a middleman. It is distributed and decentralised so that it can not be taken down or corrupted by any single person out of animosity or theft, making it very secure. However, it gives anyone and everyone the ability to use the system and help run it, as information is protected through cryptography.

Blockchain Technology owes its widespread usage to the following features it offers- Decentralisation, Transparency and Immutability.

Society today faces the dilemma of health related issues — and with valid reason. To be doubly sure of the medicines you consume, you would need a system with strong security where stored records are verified for facts mentioned by not one but many witnesses so that no single authority could cheat it.

Blockchain in Healthcare

Patient Data Management: Hospitals are looking at blockchain to store all of our medical information in a central database? The ability to centralise such sensitive information makes it of great significance. With hospitals collecting so much private patient data, it is important to create a secure platform. With the coming of blockchain, hospitals and other healthcare organisations could be in for something revolutionary, store medical records and share them strictly with authorised doctors and patients.

Drug Traceability: Drug counterfeiting is a major problem in the pharmaceutical industry. Blockchain can also help distinguish between genuine and counterfeit medicines with the simple click on a mouse. The main characteristic of blockchain technology that is useful in drug traceability is security. Each new transaction added to a block is immutable and timestamped, making it easy to track a product and make sure the information cannot be altered.

To know more about Blockchain: www.towardsblockchain.com