It is no news that Blockchain technology was originally developed to improve digital currency transactions. This technology has found its way into other industries, and healthcare is not an exception.
The healthcare industry has emerged as a major focus area for blockchain innovation. This groundbreaking technology shows immense promise to transform medical processes and improve patient outcomes through enhanced security, transparency, interoperability, and accountability across the complex healthcare ecosystem.
As blockchain solutions move from proof-of-concept to pilot testing and eventual deployment at scale, they carry the potential to revolutionize everything from managing patient records to pharmaceutical supply chains and accelerating medical research.
Amid many notable applications, we take a look at the ten most impactful use cases set to disrupt global healthcare.
Blockchain in Healthcare Sector
Explore how blockchain is transforming healthcare with these top 9 use cases of blockchain in healthcare. From securing patient data to tracking medications, blockchain is making healthcare safer and more efficient.
Managing Electronic Media Records (EMR)
EMRs contain a patient’s sensitive health history and treatment notes. Patients’ confidential data are vulnerable on centralized databases, which is why using blockchain’s decentralized and cryptographic security solutions presents transformational solutions for managing EMRs.
Blockchain-based platforms can create real-time, consolidated digital records spanning healthcare networks. Robust access controls let patients decide what information to share across providers.
An immutable audit trail also enhances data accountability. Startups like Medicalchain are pioneering HIPAA-compliant, interoperable EMR storage on blockchain. Beyond security, it facilitates continuity of care with holistic patient health views.
Protection of Healthcare Data
Beyond medical histories, healthcare handles tons of other sensitive stuff – from national research on diseases to insurance company records. Unfortunately, lots of this data today sits inside company servers, vulnerable to increasingly common cyber attacks. The decentralized nature of blockchain databases makes them far more protective.
Truly decentralized data governance empowers patients with control over their information. Unlike traditional data repositories, continuous system monitoring also enables the identification of suspicious activity for cyber threat reduction.
DeepMind, for example, is testing blockchain tools to let scientists access de-identified medical data for research while tightly controlling who can access what to prevent misuse. Patients can also track exactly how their data is used. It’s about trust and transparency.
Personal Health Record (PHR) Data Management
Blockchain is also being applied in personal health record (PHR) management. This allows you to have access to a lifetime of medical data, including lab tests, prescriptions, and imaging scans. This means that the medical team is not the only one with access to your health information.
However, control and privacy remain lacking in existing platforms. To this end, blockchain introduces the ideal infrastructure for patient-centric PHRs.
Patient-centric PHRs put the power in the hands of the users. Users can selectively disclose their health credentials to any doctor or provider without centralized intermediaries while retaining transparency in data use. Today, we have a lot of intelligent gadgets, watches, and many more that record users’ health information in real time.
Startups like Healthureum give you a personal health blockchain you fully control. Here, you can combine doctor visit summaries, test results, and even fitness data from smartwatches safely in your own “Health Wallet.”
With this, you can seamlessly digitally share anything you choose as you switch doctors or care facilities. No paperwork is needed. As healthcare modernizes, this ability to safely consolidate, update, and share your health story electronically can be life-changing!
Point-of-Care Genomics Management
Getting your genes tested at the doctor’s office can unlock a ton of helpful health insights. But how do you know for sure that the test was done properly and the results are accurate? Blockchain record-keeping can give you that validation.
Companies are making platforms where any lab can securely publish DNA test metrics like the methodology used or sequence fragments identified on a shared tamper-proof ledger.
So, instead of just taking their word for it, you or your doctor can independently verify quality or credibly challenge inconsistencies. Over time, aggregating confirmed test results can also enable better pattern finding to advance medical research for all.
The key is having a decentralized network of blockchain monitors constantly double-checking and validating new inputs. This means no single centralized database that hackers could secretly edit or corrupt. It’s how industries track billion-dollar transactions already. And now the same concept works to give your genetic testing added authentication, too!
Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management
Unfortunately, up to 10% of all medicines in circulation today are counterfeit or of degraded quality. These not only cheat us of cures but can seriously harm health in the process. Blockchain tracking helps fix this via digital supply chain monitoring.
Pharma manufacturers can now imprint each drug batch with a unique blockchain entry, including point of origin, ingredient listing, transportation path, and more. This creates an indelible identity trail across the entire distribution chain.
Should fakes infiltrate or temperature regulation lapse, the blockchain system flags deviations from the quality record in real-time. No more guessing if what comes from the pharmacy matches what left the factory months prior. Supply chain transparency protects us all through the drugs we depend on!
Device Tracking
X-ray machines, dialysis units, EEG systems – hospitals house tons of expensive gear for diagnosing and treating us. But often, asset visibility breaks down between departments regarding where machines are, their upkeep status, and which will need replacing next year. Blockchain clarity streamlines the entire lifecycle.
As each device gets utilized across radiology, cardiology, neurology, etc, every movement, maintenance issue, or setting adjustment logs permanently onto a hospital-wide blockchain ledger accessible to all.
This asset monitoring history informs smarter planning like periodicity between repairs or determining optimal leasing periods. Spend less time searching for equipment. With blockchain oversight, hospitals diagnose and deploy gear faster for us when we need it most!
Startups like TechNanoMed have pioneered blockchain-coordinated device lifecycle management spanning procurement, maintenance, utilization monitoring, and disposal adherence.
Clinical Trials
Conducting massive medical studies before new treatments reach us is vital – but managing patient consent, data flows, and result reporting across myriad trial sites is complex. Blockchain neatly handles the paperwork!
Enter details like enrollment criteria, testing methods and observations under strict controls to ensure integrity remains intact. Tag digital consent forms to participant identities, too. As findings accumulate, easily share interim analyses securely with regulators and academic reviewers to validate discoveries.
Throughout the lengthy R&D process, blockchain removes blindspots in patients’ participation while auditing ethical adherence. When final therapeutic verdicts emerge, swiftly coordinate accurate peer reviews before controlled release. What if finding the next life-saving drug cure relied on blockchain data tracking? For brighter, ethical outcomes that save us money, too – clinical trials meet blockchain!
Insurance Claims Processing
Perhaps few processes draw more health system complaints than reimbursement claims! Between lost forms, lengthy reviews and rejected appeals, patients and doctors despise navigating this bureaucracy. Blockchain simplifies everything via smart contracts!
Code agreement conditions between insurers and policyholders to auto-validate and instantly pay qualifying claims upon submission. This reduces expensive manual oversight, avoids payment delays through automated verifications, and provides all parties with immutable visibility for resolving disputes faster.
As claims resolution moves to algorithmic models, distributed blockchain ledgers make real-time auditing and debugging possible to optimise system fairness and effectiveness at scale.
Integration with Wearable Devices
Tracking health vitals through wearables like smartwatches or fitness bands delivers helpful personal insights when training or managing wellness goals. But what if these data pools also better inform your healthcare provider to pick up early warning signs?
You can selectively disclose chosen device data like activity, sleep, or heart rate curves to doctors by saving readout summaries into personal health blockchains only you can access. View consolidated records spanning any linked devices yourself or offer access on demand – returning control over your health digital footprint!
Unlike exposing readings to device brands or third parties, your blockchain ledger allows sharing verified data on how and when you choose to improve medical care. So whether to inform chronic illness or leverage preventative health, wearable data on blockchains puts you in charge!
Conclusion
Blockchain has emerged as an evolutionary force promising to repair broken DNA across today’s flawed healthcare processes using decentralization’s immutable building blocks.
Unifying patient health records. Streamlining clinical trial oversight. Optimizing insurance claims. Safeguarding medicine supply chains. We have explored manifestations targeting weaknesses at healthcare’s core alongside bleeding-edge experiments pushing boundaries further as blockchain’s healthcare footprint metastasises.
Yet these innovations constitute only the earliest sprouts in blockchain’s groundbreaking role as the modernising fabric for 21st-century healthcare. By injecting trust, accountability, and collaboration into a system historically centred on opaque commercial interests over accessible patient care, blockchain paves the road to a more equitable, responsive, and smarter healthcare tomorrow.
