Technology In The Healthcare Industry- Crypto Academy Season Four Week Three- Homework Post For @yohan2on.

Hello everyone, I am excited to partake in this week's crypto with our noble professor @yohan2on. This week with him is all about Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare industry. I will be making my submissions based on the question being asked by the professor.

First and foremost, the question for this week homework task is

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

Before I look at the potentials application, I would like to enlighten you about what actually the health care industry is

The Health Care Industry

We all know how good or how significant the health industry has played in the economy of a country. The health care industry is one of the major sectors in the world wide that performs so marvelousely in the lives of people and also a country at large.

What interest me most is the fact that,the health care industry really stands out as its an integrated sector thus, withing the economic jurisdiction of a country and the world at large. They main agenda or the motive is geared towards human satisfaction, they are able to render services to curb problems humans face (patients). This is done in so many folds that we can say; prevention, curative, palliative care are all services rendered by the health care industry.

As we can anticipate, the health sector is one of the major sectors that really generates so much data which we can say that they are in the form of centraliation. Just like the banking system where user data is seen by almost everyone available in that aspect of the work which probably could be seen private. As we all know, access to certain valuable data could always cause a lot of problems. For instance, people with a lot of profiles could want to stay hidden even though they have business deals with the health sector and they wouldalwasy want to keep their identity hidden. But we all know that in the centralized way of keeping records, user data is not always so secured and also we can mention data redundancy. So looking at this, we can inculcate the blockchain system or technology into the health sectorwhich can help improve the standards of it.

I would like to talk about the Health Informtion Exchange (HIE), which motive of development was geared towards sharing vital or resourceful information at a point of care. This was not just introduced by an individual, it was a group of people or organizations that sat and thought it wise for such an improvement, all though this looked like the centralized system. Data of patient being shared by the or organization could be at risk and to maintain data integrity and was solely dependent on the organisation being dealth with.

But the HIE was done in two folds, that is two ways of which user data was shared.

1. The Directed Exchange
2. Query-based Exchange

Where the Directed Exchange is said to be a provider is referred to send user or patient details directly onto another provider who then take in charge the patient care, and this is done through direct messaging. While the Query-based Exchange deals with a provider who then searches in a form of query and the patient data is retrieved which was already predefined to be accessible by other care providers or some public agencies.

The Directed Exchange

Source

The Query-based Exchange

source

Lets talk about the challenges and problems that were associated with this integration of the

The first thing I would talk about us that, the operational cost is very expensive. There would be a lot of cost encured when you want to use such system, quite apart from that you will also have to set some of maintenance for it which will all add operational cost.

Secondly, I will like to talk about is the fact that ensuring the health data security and privacy is always a major problem throughout the data exchange. Also, another record that this integration faces is the fact that patient data integrity is also a problem. We all know how demanding it takes in storing or keeping records, and the health industry is one of the sectors that deals with large forms of data and this is a a little challenging.

Moreso, the cost encured is another issue that wouldn't skipped in my analysis. Using such systems cost, the technology involved would cost thus in the attempt to accessing the patients data.

Lastly, we already know this system is a centralized based system since there is an agency involved in the collection of the patient data and would then serve as a form of distributer to other people in need of the data. But this is a problem because we know the effects the centralized system goes with which is also a problem here.

NOW LETS LOOK AT THE APPLICATION OF THE BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEM IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

• Firstly, Securing Patient Data is a factor
  This is the first factor i would talk about that when the blockchain technology is implement in the healthcare industry, it ould be the number one issue that would be solve. We all know how user data is valuable so any liches could harm an individual. But with the introduction of the blockchain, we know how this issues could be dealt with as a result of how the blockchain keeps or stores its data. From a research, security is still a major problem in the health industry, in the years of 2009 and 2017, it was notable that, over a 176,000,000 patients records got exposed from data breaches. From the research, the hackers got away with people credit cards and then banking data and some other valuable information of patients or clients.
  But through the blockchain, it can or wold be able to keep a corrupt free decentralized and also a very well transparent data of patient. Also the blockchain keeps private the identity of patients with some form of complex codes. As I said, we know the processes involved in the storage of data and retrieving of data by the blockchain.

• Secondly, Supply chain transparency
  another factor the blockchain remedies in the healthcare industry is a supply chain transparency. There are cases we have observed and seen on news where goods in the health industry gets smuggled but when this blockchain system is employed, such issues would not occur. The blockchain based could be used to track the goods from its manufacturing point through to the supply chain point, in this way, customers can have a full trust of the products they are purchasing
  From research, one of the leading blockchain based protocols that performs its function with companies involved in drug prescription is mediledge. More can be read through the website.

• Another factor I willliketo mention is Patient-centric electronic health records is curbed.
  Silos in data of every healthcare system in any country is always a problem, what this is trying to mean is that the patients involved and their providers always seems not to have a very complete view of the patients medical history and this is always a major problem. From a survey by the University of Johns Hopkins came out with a publication about the third leading cause of death in the United States and this was due to some medical mistakes or errors, this was published in the year 2016

source
National Center for Health Statistics, BMJ,

But as we know, this issue can be solved by creating a blockchain-based application system that will serve as a form or keeping medical records which could be connected or linked to an already preexisitng medical provider software. This could help solve all this issues.

• We can also talk about staff credential verification
  This could also look like that of the chain supply transparency, but in here the blockchain technology would aid you track the experience of the staff or the personnel you are dealing with. This could be used in a sense that, the organisation can trace the medical professionals with their credentials in other to better their hiring process. This is alsoanother way the blockchain is useful in the health industry.

LETS LOOT AT SOME OF THE BLOCKCHAIN HEALTHCARE COMPANIES

1. Akiri
2. BurstIQ
3. Factom
4. MedicalChain
5. ProCredEx
6. Avaneer
7. SimplyVital Health
8. RoboMed
9. Embleema
10. Chronicled

BurstIQ

Industry: Big Data, Cybersecurity, Software
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado

source

What the BustIQ's platform does is that, they help some of the healthcare companies in managing with a lot of safety in patient data. It focusses on safekeeping of the activities held. The main aim is that, they use the blockchain to better the way data is transferred or used.

FACTOM

Industry: IT, Enterprise Software
Location: Austin, Texas

source

the agenda of this company is to create some products that aids the healthcare department to store the data of patients on the companies blockchain platform which can only be assible by the healthcare administrator.
So basically, they employ the blockchain tech in the storage of he data by the healthcare industry.

Above are just some explations of what actually the companies I mentioned deliver or the task they perform as a blockchain site in the healthcare industry which we have seen how beneficial they can be

Conclusiion

The healthcare industry really has to improve drastically as a result of the problems they still have. We saw that with the blockchain being inculcated, it would add more vaue to the healthcare industry. I gave a scenario or how a research carried out show how medical errors causes deaths in the united states which can be solved by the blockchain technology.

The blockchain technology which when used in the healthcare industry massively can reduce data insecurities and also data redundancy. We have learnt how the blockchain is able to store data which is in block of codes. This would really help the health industry.
Above all, the choice of topic by the professor was really a great one and I really enjoyed the task. Thanks for the opportunity