10 Blockchain Use Cases That Can Be Used in Healthcare
Blockchains becomes an important tool for health Servicetransform the business globally by decentralization patient health information, monitoring of medicines and securing payments.
The most difficult task for the healthcare system is the safe handling of huge amounts of data. Cybersecurity incidents involving healthcare professionals continue to be reported worldwide.
Electronic health records (EHR): If you need to build an EHR system, blockchain can help you address data security, integrity and management challenges. Blockchain-powered apps, with their decentralization and cryptographic capabilities, enable patients and medical institutions to securely control health data, manage access to it, and safeguard privacy.
Secure data sharing: Both patients and healthcare professionals depend on the efficient flow of medical data. To enable quick and easy contact, patients can share PHI collected by smart fitness devices or medical data from other institutions with clinicians. Furthermore, medical data is valuable to researchers as it can be used for reports, statistics and studies, as well as to improve current treatment procedures and drugs. When we use blockchains for these purposes, we can safeguard the flow of data and create reliable, tamper-proof systems.
Medicine authentication: The capacity of the blockchain to provide an immutable transaction history can be exploited in the pharmaceutical sector. Blockchain-powered pharmaceutical systems can authenticate the sources of drugs and detect counterfeit drugs.
Supply Chain Management: The previously mentioned medical traceability can help improve supply chain management. Interoperability between blockchain networks can enable pharmaceutical companies to track the transport of their medicines from the source to the end customer. Some initiatives are already using blockchains in conjunction with the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to manage manufacturing processes and estimate demand for certain medicines.
Clinical and pharmaceutical trials: Several parties are involved in such studies, including study patients, study sponsors, drug manufacturers, medical device suppliers, clinicians, researchers, and so on. A successful medical study requires confidentiality as well as fast and secure data transfer. Blockchains, when used in clinical trial systems, reduce the risk of data fraud due to their consensus procedures and decentralized nature. For example, a Proof of Existence technique can be used to secure court documents.
Patient consent processing: The current mechanisms for obtaining and managing patient consent are complex. Healthcare companies must obtain patient authorization for data exchange and informed consent, secure data and patient privacy, and comply with a number of requirements.
Medical credentials: All hospitals and clinics have a credentialing procedure in place to ensure that all doctors are qualified to handle patients. It can take weeks to deliver and verify the essential papers, such as medical certificates, medical licenses and letters from previous institutions.
Secure payments: Payment-related disputes often arise as a result of human error, late payments, and fraud perpetrated using stolen patient identities. Blockchain’s security features promise to improve healthcare transactions by reducing denied claims, revealing underpayments immediately, eliminating human error, and better safeguarding patient identity.
Health Setup: Healthcare professionals often use a single central database managed by a single unit within the company. As a result, there is a single point of failure, which means hackers have a greater opportunity to compromise PHI than in decentralized systems.
Health insurance: When used in insurance applications, blockchain technology can improve patient data management while reducing regulatory and compliance costs. It can also improve communication and payment security between healthcare professionals, insurance companies and patients.