Crypto Academy| Season 4 - Week 3 | Homework Post for [@yohan2on] : Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry

Hello There,

Yet another great topic by the professor. We have already discussed Blockchain Technology in various industries and in today's post, we will focus on the use of Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry.

Research and Discuss the potential applications of Blockchain in the Health care industry.

Healthcare Industry & Blockchain

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In order to promote smart healthcare modernization, the combination of blockchain and smart healthcare can eliminate traditional smart healthcare's pain points in information sharing, data security, and privacy maintenance, Enhance user-centered smart healthcare systems and create a decentralized medical alliance chain including government, businesses, and consumers.

The smart healthcare sector is now advancing quickly, but there are still issues with information security and system security. The blockchain, as a major technology of the fourth industrial revolution, has the qualities of decentralization, anonymity, tamper-proofing, and adaptability.

The innovation in technology, such as the Internet of Things and big data, has boosted healthcare development and innovation all over the world, as well as the creation of a smart healthcare system. Smart healthcare is a medical system based on medical cloud data, which integrates electronic medical records, electronic health archives, and medical IoT by utilizing IoT, data transmission, and exchange technologies to provide medical and health services and optimize management.

Challenges of Healthcare Industry & Opportunites for Blockchain

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Fragmented Data:

This might be one of the blockchain's opportunities: a decentralized data center for patient information shared data across domains and networks, and a decentralized source of internet of things data.

Access & Data Inconsistency:

This is yet another opportunity, A smart contract offers a uniform and rule-based approach for obtaining and analyzing patient data that may be granted to specified health care organizations.

Data Security:

In today's environment, security is the primary issue, and digitizing data security of transactions- digital identity protects patients' privacy.

Patient Generated Data:

Data from wearable devices (IoT) is compiled to provide comprehensive patient care.

Timely Access to Patient Data:

Access to patient healthcare data is accessible and safe throughout the distributed ledger and shared data allows for real-time changes across networks.

Cost Effectiveness:

Reduced transaction costs and real-time processing improve system efficiency, and the removal of third-party apps eliminates data access time lag.

Problems in the Healthcate Industry and their solution via blockchain tenchnology

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The way data is exchanged between organizations in the value chain is one of the most essential components of the healthcare industry. The Blockchain allows for smooth information exchange, which can minimize duplication, mistakes, and inconsistencies that might occur with traditional, centralized data storage. The applications for smart contracts reduce the need for middlemen to oversee and execute the patient's contracts.

Blockchain is already gaining traction among healthcare practitioners throughout the sector who demand safe and efficient access to a patient's entire medical data. Let's take a look at how blockchain might influence the future of healthcare for both patients and professionals.

Medical Data Sharing and Management:

• Problem: Medical mistake is the third biggest cause of deaths in the United States, after only cancer and heart disease. Part of the problem arises from a severe lack of openness among medical institutions, as well as hospital systems' failure to securely and efficiently communicate data.

Electronic health records were never intended to be used to handle medical data across different institutions throughout the course of a person's life. Throughout their lives, people spread their medical information among several organizations and from one health system silo to the next, frequently losing access to crucial historical data.
With essential patient information being so expensive and time-consuming to distribute, it's no surprise that the flow of medical data is sometimes blocked – resulting in greater costs.

• Solution: Medical data held on blockchains are not controlled by a single organization. As a result, it may be spread across individuals and organizations. Every transaction in the chain is time-stamped, creating a permanent record of the whole chain that cannot be changed later.

Blockchain technology can safely facilitate the transfer of patient information across national and international boundaries, improve member health management coordination, decrease transaction costs and risks, and even enable medical tourism.

Drug Development and Supply Chain:

• Problem: Pharmaceuticals are a significant part of the US drug industry, and even more so in poorer nations, costing pharmaceutical corporations. Despite the fact that anybody purchasing medicine can request a certificate of authenticity, opportunistic actors have been known to fake such certificates.

• Solution: Blockchain in healthcare can boost supply chain efficiency and transparency by providing both large-picture and minute-by-minute data on each pharmaceutical product transaction. Companies like IBM, Walmart, and UPS are already using blockchain technology to improve supply chain integrity.

Patients could be able to obtain real-time information on any drug from manufacture through arrival at a retail pharmacy if supply data is kept in a blockchain. Other elements, such as barcode labeling, might be weaved into the system as a result of barcode labeling.

The quantity of medicine delivered
The availability of medications in polyclinics is being monitored
Who was given the medication

In this approach, blockchains may change the system from a collection of disconnected data segments controlled by a single organization to the life history of any resource, whether it's a patient's health record or a medicine traveling through the supply chain.

Billing Management, Claims, and Fraud:

• Problem: Approximately 5-10% of healthcare expenses are fraudulent.

• Solution: Using a blockchain-based automation system can significantly cut administrative expenses associated with claims, payments, and processing time, rendering middlemen unnecessary.

• Problem: Currently, all claims are processed manually, and payer networks can fail when a provider relocates or transfers into or out of the payer's network. Every year, payers incur the expenses of validating provider information. When the data does change, it must be handled by a slew of siloed systems across one or more payer networks, resulting in greater costs and longer processing times.

• Solution: Every insurance policy may be included in a smart contract or program, agreed upon, and made available to all stakeholders. Bills may be verified automatically, saving cycle time and costs while virtually eliminating disagreements.

Blockchains can provide for a single, accurate source of provider information. A Blockchain ledger may connect all network stakeholders, including payers, providers, and patients, boosting system efficiency by needing only one update throughout the network. Smart contracts on the blockchain have the potential to revolutionize the manual approach in which member claims and disputes are now handled.

Medical Research:

• Problem: Currently, 50% of all clinical studies go unreported, and researchers frequently fail to communicate their findings, creating information gaps for all stakeholders and jeopardizing patient safety.

• Solution: A safe and centralized repository of clinical trials and patient outcomes for novel treatments/drugs might dramatically improve patient care and outcomes. The permanent time-stamped blockchain records of clinical trials and results may benefit in the reduction of result swapping, data manipulation, unethical reporting, fraud, and mistake.

By publishing patient results more widely, blockchains have the potential to catalyze new and creative research projects (with patient consent). Furthermore, sharing patient data more extensively (with patient agreement) might spark new and creative research efforts, resulting in extraordinary collaboration between participants and researchers.

Case Management:

Blockchains have the potential to improve patient case management. The plan of care might be added to the blockchain ledger as part of the patient's medical record whenever a patient consults a doctor and approves on a treatment plan.

Then, utilizing all of the aspects of the patient's case management, a smart contract may be created. The contract defines the foundation for the patient's treatment goals, as well as the rules established inside the smart contract for tracking and evaluating the patient's progress. The patient's files will be available in historical data on care delivery and reaction once they are uploaded to the blockchain.

Conclusion

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The use of Blockchain Technology in the healthcare industry has marked a revolutionary change in the industry's history. Considering all of the challenges that exist in the healthcare sector, such as data breaches, ineffective treatments, and incorrect diagnoses. Blockchain Technology is now handling slow operations with minimal security. With its applications, Blockchain Technology has been able to overcome nearly all of the problems in the healthcare business. Still, there is always room for improvement and we should keep searching and developing new technology for the betterment of human life.