Blockchain Technology: A Game Changer for Travel and Healthcare Industry?

Blockchain technology has the potential of making an era of healthcare where all the patient data is completely secure. Data security has been a big issue in the healthcare industry for a long time.

Some Stats on Data Breaches in Healthcare

In January month of 2019, there were multiple data breaches in a single day. Hence, these data breach incidents give rise to a feeling of insecurity in the mind of the businessmen running healthcare businesses.

So, this is really a sensitive concern on which people should focus. People have hope from this amazingly popular blockchain technology that has proved to ensure the complete data security and fastest transaction speed.

Blockchain in Healthcare

1. Use of Blockchain makes Electronic Medical Records Secure

In the present time, people use data centers to store all the electronic medical records. Also, these records are accessible to hospitals and caretakers only. Moreover, this information is much too expensive and prone to security incidents.

Here, Blockchain technology can help the healthcare industry to make all of its electronic medical records completely secure.

In a blockchain network, medical histories of every patient are shared among doctors, hospitals and other regulatory authorities.

Whenever this shared ledger notices any updation, all the changes transfer to all the people having authorized access to this blockchain network. So, this is the use of blockchain technology to make electronic medical records quite secure and immutable.

2. Use of Blockchain in Healthcare Payment Preauthorization

Whenever a patient claims, he/she generally do not submit all the required documents. Hence, payers need to ask for more information which takes additional cost and time.

Blockchain technology makes it quite easier. It automates the collection and sharing of information. All the payments are faster and secure with this decentralized distributed ledger technology.

It has the capability of creating permanent records of a transaction which can not be changed or deleted. Moreover, any change requires the permission of all the authorized members of a blockchain network. Hence, there is no chance of any kind of tampering in records.

3. Blockchain can help to Avoid Insurance Frauds

Insurance fraud is a big issue that has affected the entire healthcare industry. This happens when dishonest providers and patients submit wrong claims/information in order to get payable advantages.

According to Boyd Insurance, Medicare fraud in the US alone costs around 68 billion dollars in a year. And Jack Liu, CEO at ALLIVE says:

“A blockchain environment can eliminate a large portion of this fraud when providers and patients must enter their information and data to be verified, recorded and stored and health insurance companies must have access to that data.”

Blockchain in Travel & Tourism

Other than the healthcare sector, Blockchain also has something for the travel sector. Here are some potential uses of blockchain in the travel industry.

1. Blockchain helps in Tracking Luggage

With the help of this amazingly popular blockchain technology, it is quite easy to track the movements of luggage, especially while dealing with international travel. Most of the times, a customer’s luggage changes hands multiple times during the course of a journey.

With the help of a decentralized database, it becomes quite easy to share data between various companies.

2. Blockchain helps in making Identification Services more efficient

Identification services have a lot of importance in the travel industry. And here blockchain can come up as the potential solution to reduce the time consumed in performing identification checks of the individual tourists.

It takes less time when you use a fingerprint for identification. While the time is consumed much when tourists stand in queues and show several documents just to complete the identification process.

Blockchain will really reduce a considerable amount of time here. And time is the most precious thing for the growth of an industry.

3. Blockchain results in Secure and Traceable Payments

It sounds really interesting as something about money is here! Blockchain can work as a global ledger and can make bank payments more simple and secure. Moreover, it can make travel companies more advanced by accepting payments using bitcoin and other virtual cryptocurrencies.

4. Blockchain can make Customer Loyalty Schemes more efficient

There are various travel companies that run customer loyalty schemes. It is some sort of gamification. And it results in more customer engagement. Moreover, it increases the probability of a customer becoming a potential returning customers.

Here, blockchain can be quite helpful in making the overall process easier. Plus it can help customers to access their information regarding loyalty more easily. And ultimately, it results in more distribution of tokens.

Not only this, using blockchain here results in avoiding frauds in these schemes.

Travel Companies who already incorporated Blockchain Technology:

a) BeeToken

BeeToken is the most innovative use of blockchain. It is a kind of home sharing portal. Customers connect with hosts and pay them for the stays they make. And since this platform is based on blockchain technology, there is no commission and all the things like payment and reputation are unaltered.

b) LockChain

LockChain is a direct marketplace for hotels and hospitality companies who are willing to give property on rent. This platform fulfills all the requirements related to payment and property management.

The most interesting thing is that it is a decentralized system and there is no middleman or any kind of commission fees!

c) Winding Tree

Winding Tree is a blockchain based platform for baggage tracking. It has a booking element in it. Since blockchain has helped here to avoid third-party involvement and to achieve greater transparency, booking & tracking can be performed in an easy and secure way.

d) Trippki

Trippki is a beautiful instance of a customer loyalty reward practice. Here at this portal, customers, hotel chains and hospitality companies are made in straight contact. This reward system gives TRIP tokens to customers who stay in a hotel.

And these transactions get recorded in the blockchain. It clearly shows that these TRIP tokens do not have an expiry date and can be used by the customer throughout his lifetime.

Blockchain Development Companies in Demand

Since Blockchain applications in travel and healthcare industries are trending with the time, more and more blockchain development companies are entering into the market to cater the needs of those who wish to have a blockchain based platform or application in their business model.

This era is of blockchain technology and almost every industry is looking to incorporate this amazingly powerful technology in its business model so as to make it more efficient, secure and fast. Other industries like banking, food and education industry, no one is untouched with the benefits of this technology.

Anyone who wishes to create a blockchain based application for his business can hire blockchain developers from the firms who create and outsource blockchain based products.

Final words:

Both travel as well as healthcare industry has seen so many advantages of using blockchain technology. And this is, of course, the beginning of blockchain era. With time, almost all industries and all the processes will have little or more use of blockchain in them.

I hope now you have clear information on how healthcare, as well as the travel industry, gets benefit from Blockchain Technology. In case you want to put your suggestions or feedback, please leave a comment in the comment box.