How Blockchain is solving the hurdles in Health Industry?

Blockchain plays such a crucial role that it is impossible to miss it while discussing the technology innovation in recent times.

After the internet, if there is something that disrupted the industries then it has to be blockchain. Despite its recent origin Blockchain has managed to accumulate the attention of some of the major industries. The most conventional application of blockchain is a financial transaction. Apart from that its multitude of the application has made other sectors plunging in the pool. Healthcare is absolutely one such sector which is slowly witnessing the change that Blockchain is bringing in. Thus have a glance at will blockchain is ready to unravel the hurdles coming back in health industries way?

What is Blockchain?

The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology where all the data exchanged is stored in the form of blocks. Before going into the particular topic, Refer our blog to understand concerning Basics of blockchain and the way it works?

“Blockchain: Solution to digital world”

Now let’s have a glance at What area unit the most challenges health care business is facing?

1. Documentation

2. Counterfeited products and drugs

3. Centralized data storage

4. Drug supply chain

Let’s analyze these problems one by one:

Interoperability of patient data–

In the field of health care, one of the major problems we face is documentation. Which has all the personal details of the individuals, medical history and other health conditions? In the current times, it becomes a little bit difficult to retrieve the data immediately. For example, if the patient is traveling from one place to another and is visiting a new doctor, then in the current scenario, either he/she needs to carry the entire paper with him/her, or they have to send everything over the email. This becomes cumbersome, Particularly within the times of emergency. Interoperability ensures that the right data is made available to the right person at the right time.

Many people believe blockchain is going to solve all of the world’s problems including something that has plagued the healthcare industry for decades: interoperability of medical records and data. While blockchain and interoperability of medical records could have a symbiotic relationship, there is nothing inherent in blockchain that addresses the interoperability problem of healthcare data.

In the world of health care, sharing information needs a centralized server or the transmission of bulk information between establishments.

According to a study by the Mayo Clinic, centralization may increase security risks while bulk data transmission may force institutions to give up control of their data.

What makes blockchain unique is that it is actually decentralized and utilizes an open ledger of data through an intricate system of blocks. Instead of centralization, trust is distributed to participating parties in the network. In effect, blockchain operates as the “Level 1 and Level 2” of an infrastructure that is efficient, decentralized and secure.

Counterfeited drugs–

This is the key problem that we have. There is always a greater probability that drugs to be replaced by duplicate drugs which can be a big threat to the health of the person consuming it.

Centralized data storage–

Data security concerns plague most of the industries. In the current system, most of the companies are using the system which is centralized. All the data is stored at a central server. It becomes easier for anyone to hack the data. Any fault in the central server will hamper the data access.

Drug Supply Chain–

Another problem that trouble the healthcare industry is tracking of the products. Anything related to the healthcare sector, or from drugs to medical equipment comes under this.

How the blockchain will be helpful for this?

You might be wondering, how will Blockchain is helpful in enhancing the efficiency of the healthcare industry. Well, the answer for all these challenges lies in the fact that Blockchain, though, used for the financial transaction, can leverage the same platform to other industries. The financial transactions are replaced by the data or information or products which can belong to any industry. Some of the features of blockchain is used by the healthcare industry. Which will make the business operations more transparent.

Decentralization–

This can be one in every of the foremost necessary options of Blockchain. That helps it in creating the info storage localized. So there is the lesser likelihood for hacking of knowledge or somebody sterilization the info. Moreover, the data is distributed within the blockchain network, which suggests that one will simply access the data from anyplace.

Security–

All the information is cryptographically secured. Thus making it difficult for anyone to breach into the system and hack the data.

Traceability-

As already mentioned that all the data or information in the DLT is time-stamped which means, it is easy for anyone in the system to track the data. Moreover, the Blockchain system works faster than the conventional tracking system, thus it saves a lot of time.

Easy access to information–

As already mentioned that Blockchain offers a decentralized platform for data storage which is accessible to all the people in the network, popularly known as the nodes. Well, with the help of Blockchain, we can have all the information related to patient fed into the ledger and this information is accessible to the authorized people in the network.

Conclusion:

The application of Blockchain in the healthcare division is not merely on papers; rather, we have companies and startups investing in the same. One of the use cases of Blockchain in healthcare can be in the drug development process. The traditional system takes 8-10 years in drug development, but with the help ofBlockchain, we can allow easy sharing of information, test results between projects, patient pools which will eventually lessen the time taken for drug development. So, the answer for the question, whether Blockchain can be helpful in overcoming the challenges of the healthcare system, then the answer for this is yes.