The seemingly limitless potential of blockchain in healthcare

Interoperability remains the holy grail of healthcare, the goal to which all organizations strive. Removing silos and improving communication between different systems and organizations is urgent, as it promises to lead to greater efficiency and improved results, while reducing costs – and not a moment too soon, given the fact that the world’s population is aging and it is a growing shortage of clinicians.

Blockchain – a secure, decentralized digital ledger most often associated with cryptocurrency – is increasingly seen as a path towards achieving interoperability, or building bridges between “data islands” – i.e. the organizations and systems where patient data can be stored (but not shared) .

That’s how they were described by Sriram Bharadwaj, vice president of digital innovation and applications at Franciscan Health, a Midwest organization, on the Health IT Analytics website. More often labeled data silos, the frequent inability to share information between them leaves clinicians in a position where they do not always have a complete picture of a patient’s medical history, and thus are unable to provide the best care. Blockchain can solve this problem and help create unified patient records (UPR).

In addition, wider availability of information will go a long way in compiling population health estimates, a crucial element in the establishment of health policies and programs.

Finally, blockchain is a means to increase cyber security and overcome issues in areas such as supply chain management, data management and transfer, and medication compliance.

From a clinician’s perspective, blockchain makes information available in real time, which goes a long way toward eliminating delays in care delivery and duplication of services, improving patient outcomes while reducing waste. Duplicate health care alone—much of it due to difficulty or inability to access test results or procedures—leads to $200 billion in unnecessary spending each year.

Beyond that, blockchain ensures clinician-patient confidentiality.

It’s no wonder, then, that blockchain exploration in the healthcare sector is “very widespread,” as Sean Manion, chief scientific officer of blockchain company Equideam Health, told Becker’s Hospital Review in a July 2022 interview. That’s especially true among leading pharmaceutical companies and payer-provider organizations, la he to.

Adoption has been much slower than in the fintech area, due to greater regulatory obstacles and increased risk aversion – the latter not without reason. As Manion put it: “If you mess something up with respect to fintech, money can be lost. But if you mess something up in healthcare, people can die.”

The healthcare sector has traditionally been slow to innovate, but the pandemic and the accompanying increase in patients accelerated the digital transformation of organizations worldwide. More and more of these facilities are adopting state-of-the-art technology, including blockchain, to meet the needs of their patients while reducing the burden on staff.

It is only expected to continue. Allied Market Research estimates that the healthcare blockchain technology market, which stood at just over $531 million in 2021, will mushroom to $16.3 billion by 2031, a robust compound annual growth rate of 40.8 percent. Allied further notes that while the largest market share by application was in supply chain management, over the next decade there will be a shift towards data exchange and interoperability.

Giang Tran, founder of akaChain at FPT Software, told the Information Age website that blockchain can actually “solve the problem” of interoperability. As he put it:

“To facilitate better health outcomes for patients, it has become popular to share medical records between different health systems. … Through the joint effort to establish an industry standard, blockchain can help preserve privacy, as well as facilitate joint coordination between health systems to an affordable price, thereby improving health outcomes.”

Simply put, there are those who compare blockchain to a highly encrypted digital spreadsheet that can be shared across multiple computers. Every time any of these parties attempt to make a change, it must be approved by all the others in order for information to be added in the form of a new block. That means data will be more secure, an important consideration in light of the fact that healthcare cybersecurity breaches hit a record high in 2021. They affected 45 million people, according to a report by cybersecurity firm Critical Insights, 11 million more than the previous year.

In addition, there were 692 major data breaches (ie, those that affected 500 or more records) between July 2021 and June 2022, according to the HIPAA Journal. Blockchain’s decentralized nature makes such cybercrime far more difficult, creating a level of trust not available through other technological means.

Blockchain can also make the transfer of a patient’s data, either from an organization to a consumer or to a location of the patient’s own choosing, more efficient and secure. Such transfers were mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act, which was passed by the US Congress in 2016 and prohibits organizations from inhibiting the flow of such data, which is most often included in electronic health records (EHRs).

Blockchain also makes it possible to identify, verify and trace medicines at all stages of the supply chain. It could go a long way toward stemming the flow of counterfeit drugs, which cost pharmaceutical companies as much as $200 billion a year, while ensuring drug quality and effectiveness and, ultimately, the safety of the consumer.

The medicine’s point of origin is marked in the ledger, and at each step in the supply chain, data is added – especially who handled the medicine and where they did it. Transparency is as a result ensured.

Then there is the issue of medication adherence. It is estimated that 75 percent of Americans do not take their medications as prescribed, leading to approximately $300 billion in unnecessary spending each year, including $100 billion in unnecessary hospitalizations. Blockchain-based platforms such as MyPCR make it possible to track and verify patients’ usage.

It is important to note that there are barriers to the widespread use of blockchain in the healthcare sector, the first of which was mentioned earlier – the reluctance to adopt new technologies. There is also a lack of suppliers that deal with blockchain. But the benefits are as obvious as they are numerous. In an age where the focus is on efficiency and ensuring the best possible results, there are few technologies that are more promising.

About Dr. Rekha Bhandari

Dr. Rekha Bhandari is the Chief Medical Officer of the Allure Group, a coalition of six New York City-based senior care facilities. Dr. Bhandari is board certified in internal medicine, geriatrics and palliative medicine. Since 2001, Dr. Bhandari has served as Vice President of Glenridge Medical Associates, a medical group of physicians in Ridgewood, Queens, offering internal medicine, family medicine and geriatric services. Dr. Bhandari is a member of several medical societies such as the American College of Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, the Center of Advanced Palliative Care, and the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.