Blockchain Technology in Healthcare — Associate Prof Afizan Azman

Globally, the use of blockchain technology extends beyond cryptocurrencies. Created in 2008, it is a decentralized ledger that can be used to verify and track multi-step transactions in healthcare, retail, supply chain, financial industries and more.

Having reduced compliance costs and faster data transfer processing, users can also verify secure transactions using this technology, without the need for a central certificate authority.

Closer to home, Malaysia started its efforts in blockchain technology in 2015, with the Securities Commission (SC) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) as key parties in the movement.

Going forward, the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) has stated that Malaysia will adopt Blockchain by 2025, and many banking institutions are being asked to explore and adopt this technology in their financial systems.

From a healthcare perspective, any healthcare institution treats medical data as a highly privacy-sensitive element. The idea of ​​giving patients control over access to their records and the exchange of health data between institutions increases the risk of data exposure and opens up issues around trust and security.

Therefore, blockchain’s distributed ledger technology in healthcare facilitates the safe transfer of patient records, improves healthcare data security, controls the medicine supply chain, and aids genetic coding studies in the medical field, thus ensuring medical data integrity and privacy in Malaysia.

Currently, the problems with the records system include a lack of security, difficulties in transferring records between multiple health facilities due to system complications, human errors in recording, storing and transferring patient data, and unwanted tampering with data.

These problems can become stumbling blocks that greatly contribute to even bigger and more unfavorable problems such as large financial losses for healthcare institutions, due to complications with the patient’s medical data, which can lead to legal consequences.

Furthermore, when medical records are mixed up, not updated or stored incorrectly, it can seriously endanger a patient’s well-being and health.

In addition, the inefficiency of an antiquated medical record system will certainly jeopardize the patient transfer process between different medical institutes due to complications with the patient’s medical data exchange.

Post-Covid-19 pandemic, Malaysia has been dealing with issues related to healthcare. A national scandal followed after the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) revealed that the contact tracing mobile app MySejahtera was developed for the government without a contract with the developers.

Separately, then Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin set up a Healthcare Work Culture Improvement Task Force (HWCITF) to investigate the allegedly toxic work culture in public hospitals.

Private general practitioner (GP) clinics, pharmacies and hospitals in Malaysia have suffered severe shortages of various prescription and over-the-counter medicines since May last year, due to the Covid-19 shutdowns in Shanghai, China, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

More than an acute problem, the extraordinarily severe drug shortage in Malaysia this year revealed a need to increase the country’s drug security for future international problems in the global pharmaceutical supply chain, as Malaysia is a net importer of pharmaceutical products.

The collaborative role of blockchain, artificial intelligence, automation and the Internet of Things (IoT) will be able to solve and more importantly, prevent such problems from occurring.

MySejahtera is known to have infused blockchain technology into its system during its conceptualization. The app could have worked better had it covered the entire process, everything from user registration, vaccine supply chain, contact with Pusat Pemberian Vaccine (PPV), medical officers and more.

Meanwhile, the issue of unfair workload and toxic work culture at public hospitals can also be resolved if the Ministry of Health integrates digital innovation into its systems.

Many manual processes can be automated and data transfer from one doctor to another can be updated quickly and efficiently, promoting a favorable environment between patients and doctors.

Blockchain technology can also help with medicine shortages through proper analysis in hospitals. Through analysis with unmanipulated data, it can help solve problems in the pharmaceutical supply chain by establishing proof of ownership.

Before they reach patients, drug ownership changes from the manufacturer to the distributor, then to the pharmacist, by cloning Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Using the blockchain’s ability, more features can be periodically added to the chain.

There are several processes and new regulatory procedures related to blockchain that need to be standardized and coordinated. As a catalyst for change, Malaysia should see this as a core pillar to move the needle forward. Blockchain technology is ready and so are we.

Prof Afizan Azman is Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science, Faculty of Innovation and Technology, Taylor’s University.

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