Steemit Crypto Academy S4W3 || Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry Homework Post for @yohan2on
"The blockchain cannot be described just as a revolution. It is a tsunami-like phenomenon, slowly advancing and gradually enveloping everything along its way by the force of its progression."
William Mougayar
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Steemit Crypto Academy S4W3 || Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry Homework Post for @yohan2on
According to the preamble of the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), adopted at the 1946 International Health Conference, health is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".
This definition of the term health has evolved from the origins of humanity, where it was associated with physical health and the presence or absence of disease, to the present day, where it has expanded to encompass more areas of our lives, such as mental health and social health.
On the other hand, we refer to the health industry, also known as the medical industry or health economy, to the set of goods and services aimed at preserving and protecting people's health. This term includes the generation, distribution and marketing of goods and services aimed at maintaining and restoring health.
The modern health industry groups together three essential branches: services, products and finance, and can be divided into many sectors and categories that seek to satisfy the health needs of individuals and populations, and as such, it is no stranger to technological development.
In this post, we will seek to present the benefits that the adoption of blockchain in the healthcare industry can provide.
Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare industry
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Sometimes we hear the term blockchain, but can it be used in sectors beyond financial?
We know that behind Blockchain technology it has applications in smart contracts, voting systems, cloud storage, digital identities, among others, since this technology allows the transfer of data with a very sophisticated encryption and in a very secure way, basically manages the process of sending or exchanging transactions (through the use of blocks), thanks to the use of nodes through which the blocks travel, linked and encrypted, to protect to the maximum the security and privacy of the data that is sent.
Blockchain technology is undoubtedly one of the technologies in modernity that will reach new scientific milestones, as well as the technical challenges to be addressed, and part of this is in the health sector, which we will address the solutions that the Blockchain in this article.
Problems and Challenges in the Health Sector
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A problem today in the health sector is the counterfeiting of medicines. Sales over the Internet could be the main source of the entry of fake drugs, since the Internet ensures great advertising content for the trafficker, as well as practically total impunity when the sale and purchase are not made on secure sites.
Many times these shipments make tracking very difficult, causing counterfeits to circumvent the exhaustive quality controls required in developed countries. In 2007, Valerio Reggi, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO), commented that most counterfeits are detected accidentally. That this could be an iceberg where only the tip is known.
Each health center stores part of the history of each user, which should not be shared with others, but this causes patients to be forced to repeat tests unnecessarily. On the other hand, poor management could compromise data security. On the other hand, faulty management could break the cold chain, where faulty storage can compromise medicines.
One of the main concerns of medical doctors and pharmacists is in the traceability of medicines, which is about knowing all the steps, from their manufacture to the arrival to the patient, who has followed a medicine through the supply chain.
Blockchain-based solutions for the Healthcare Industry
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With Blockchain technology, a much more secure medical history can be developed, where clinical data and medical data can be read and shared with the total certainty of its integrity, which will allow information to be shared between medical centers. And in this way you can avoid repeating duplicate tests on patients, have critical information updated without the need for some kind of procedure, and better control over the history of each patient. In addition, as a consequence, knowing part of the history of each patient could allow us to detect patterns that appear before some types of diseases or find out which treatments could be more effective.
For example, a patient with medical insurance has policy details linked to their profile that are activated when they seek medical attention, which guarantees correct payment to providers, this could be implemented through the use of Smart Contracts of Blockchain technology.
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Another example of this is the Iryo company, whose project is to give control of the medical record to the patient using the open EHR medical standard, open source, through the Blockchain network. The same occurs with the Patientory dApp company, which also allows the use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and the Blockchain network so that each patient can store their medical information and share it safely.
However, in my personal opinion, Iryo is taking great initiatives, about three years ago he partnered with the NGO called Walk With Me to expand his technology in the Middle East, starting with refugee camps in Lebanon and later expanding to countries like Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, among others.
Blockchain technology could also be applied to more efficiently and automatically control and manage consumption, and therefore drug production. An automated system for the supply of medicines could be implemented, based on what is prescribed in medical centers for their patients. In addition, when verifying the drugs, a large number of drugs that enter fraudulently will be eliminated from the market, as there is no adequate control system that allows these counterfeits. In addition, Blockchain systems could help eliminate the need for third parties, decrease administrative and time costs for payers and providers, and that through medical billing by automating most payment processing activities, and the possibility of adjudicating. claims.
For example, the company Gem Health works on Blockchain platforms for companies, and has been developing applications, through Blockchain, for the management of claims and medical care, since this allows to overcome the obstacles to have the information of the drug monitoring, thus creating a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) system.
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Another potential application is like those that companies such as Samsung have opted, which is the creation of health passports to promote sectors, such as tourism or aviation, which, due to mobility limitations due to health criteria, have been blocked.
Health passports have come to the fore to meet current mobility challenges. Sensitive information is found in this type of digital document, which must be stored and protected so that it cannot fall into the hands of malicious people.
For example, there is a proposal for a health passport after the COVID-19 pandemic, in association with three large companies; OpenHealth which is responsible for the management of health data, from use for research and to the general public, also SICPA, which is a Swiss group that is responsible for providing secure authentication and traceability technology and finally, the GuardTime company which works based on Blockchain technology, certified by the European Union.
Some people will think that a passport or some health identification could be something discriminatory for people who do not have it, for example the case of France that for some restaurants it was necessary to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and that resulted in a group of people who sat outside in protest.
In my personal opinion, and especially in sectors such as aviation and tourism, where many people and different nationalities interact at the same time, the health passport is an excellent initiative, which also with the use of Blockchain provides security and confidence , and of course, that it is completely decentralized.
Conclusions
Whether it is knowing the tracking of a drug as well as its validity and verification, even having all medical records at hand, even with a health passport to travel in a pandemic are just some of the benefits that Blockchain technology brings in the health industry.
There are also other applications related to the Internet of Things (IoT), which could even complement and enhance the applications that I previously mentioned.
Without a doubt, Blockchain allows us to explore other sectors beyond the financial one, and to seek solutions for the challenges and challenges that they may go through, and not only this, it is not something exclusive, for example the Docademic company has a project between both sectors, through Blockchain technology they offer Telemedicine services, as well as providing the patient with their medical record on the network and also, for medical consultations, they can start earning tokens. Blockchain applications in the medical sector are quite a lot, and every day grows.
This is my Homework Post for Steemit Crypto Academy S4W3 || Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Industry by Professor @yohan2on
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This is good content. Thanks for taking the time to research the possible applications of Blockchain in the health care industry.
Total| 9/10
Thank you Professor @yohan2on for your feedback!
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