Is Blockchain the solution to failing global healthcare?

With the myriad of threats humanity faces on a daily basis, the need for research and medicine and healthcare has come to the fore. During the pandemic, we have even seen the polar opposites of the population’s opinions on healthcare. Where most of them turned to science while there was a segment of the population that rejected modern medicine due to various reasons ranging from belief systems, to lack of trust, to medical treatment becoming too expensive. Although demand for healthcare has increased significantly, we have seen trust in global healthcare diminish due to systemic breaches. With this situation at hand, we will see how a topic like blockchain can make room in the functionality of the healthcare system.

In the world of healthcare, blockchain occupies a special place of service that the MIT Technology Review likes to call the intersection of hope and hype. Therefore, for the remainder of this reading, we will venture into this space and explore the various ways in which blockchain technology and the world of healthcare intersect.
In the medical field, prescription and patient data must be made confidential to avoid breaches of privacy and then distributed to hospitals and clinics. How is one able to organize all this data safely and securely? A modern solution has arisen in the form of blockchain technology. In this article, we will explore the benefits and mechanisms of implementing blockchain technologies in the world of medicine and healthcare.

Before we get into the technicalities and intricacies of solving problems in the medical world, let’s first do a quick review of what blockchain is.

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What is blockchain?

In simple words, blockchain is a collaborative ledger of transaction records that cannot be tampered with. The name comes from the information stored in blocks, each of which has a specific and unique hash identifier that is then linked together and each has the hash of the previous block of information. This structure of the arrangement of information allows changes or modifications made to the block to be very difficult to hide since all the connected blocks will be modified as a result. Therefore, it is a great place to store important information that you do not want to be tampered with or changed. To add a new block to the blockchain, the request for addition is sent to each participant or node in the network to be validated. The nodes can even receive a reward for their work, which is usually cryptocurrency. Then the block is added and an updated version of the blockchain is now sent through the network to notify of the changes that have been made.

Now comes the question, how can blockchain technology help in healthcare? Let’s explore.

Blockchain technology in the healthcare system

Transparency

Blockchain can be an important resource for organizing supply chains with authentic origins and preventing counterfeit prescriptions and devices from harming the unknowing public. The entire production process of manufacturing to achieve medication of the patient is made transparent using blockchain, and verification at each step can be done to preserve the safety of medication information. For example, a pharmacy can review and validate whether a drug manufacturing unit or warehouse and its shipping method were up to standards, and if so, authorize it and release it for patient use.

Contact tracing

Contact tracing is a key strategy used by healthcare professionals during endemics and pandemics to slow the spread of disease. Upon diagnosis, contact tracers will refer people to services that can help them manage the situation and isolate them properly to prevent further spread of the virus. In addition, anyone who has been a primary contact with the person diagnosed will be notified and informed of possible exposure and will be referred with further instructions and information. Throughout this process, it is important to remember that the name of the individual is kept private and confidential.
Blockchain can also be used in contact tracing by allowing the sharing of disease diagnoses between doctors and patients or even doctors and other doctors. Features such as decentralization, delayed timestamps, and delayed location data help increase patient privacy while continuing to effectively notify individuals of their condition diagnosis.

Electronic journals

This is perhaps the most important part of the healthcare sector that blockchain can revolutionize. Instead of paper documents that potentially fall into the wrong hands and can be damaged over time or the transfer of data via e-mail or post, all medical records are now online and encrypted. If the records need to be transferred to another area of ​​the hospital, switched between doctors or transferred to another healthcare system, setting up a blockchain for records will enable patients to securely own their own data and have the validity of the data verified . by healthcare personnel by asking the blockchain if the patient’s locally stored encrypted information matches the encrypted information on the blockchain, there is very little risk of the information being intercepted by someone else thanks to the blockchain encryption and privacy functions. The security of the mechanism is further enhanced by the decentralized identifiers and sovereign identity. Decentralized identifiers allow for a verifiable but decentralized digital identity, while sovereign identity gives people control over their digital identities. Overall, blockchain technology can work to organize and protect confidential patient information by allowing the patient to control their own data in a self-surpassed identity ecosystem, this system is independent and does not rely on a single third party for validation, rather the data can be distributed in decentralized chains where the data are in several places and thus prevent tampering and manipulation.

Data from clinical trials

A large part of innovation in healthcare is experimentation and research. With the daily increase in potentially harmful diseases and pathogens that pose viable threats to humanity, the testing and trial of medicines takes first place in the importance of approval of medical inventions.
In research, basic information is always taken into account, and further research is done based on this information. It is important to note that this basic information throughout the research should remain untouched, and this is where the use of blockchain comes into play. The initial data or non-variables in the research are stored in the blockchain and therefore further research will confirm the validity of the research. This avoids any kind of malpractice where the readings and details of the research are tampered with to suit the final result even when there is an exchange of information between researchers and researchers. Therefore, any kind of clinical data is preserved by its research sanctity through blockchain.

Therefore, we see that blockchain has the reach and versatility to make itself useful in both the financial and business worlds, for healthcare. As time progresses, there will be more acceptance and use of blockchain technology as a reliable intervention, and therefore will find more of its functionality in the nooks and crannies of systemic processes in the healthcare world. This makes the healthcare world a more reliable and foolproof industry.

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Picture 1: Exact on Unsplash