Top Uses Cases of Blockchain in Healthcare

Security of Health Records

One of the biggest challenges of healthcare interoperability is that most healthcare systems cannot exchange their health data securely. Data security and integrity issues hinder meaningful coordination and collaboration in healthcare.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger which has an interesting feature that once data is entered inside the blockchain, that data becomes permanent and cannot be changed. This immutable feature of blockchain helps support the need to guarantee the integrity and validity of patients' health records.

Using blockchain technology as a common technology standard has the potential to address healthcare interoperability challenges. Blockchain technology provides access control through public and private chains. Thus, blockchain systems protect health records as well as improve data privacy.

Blockchain technology can be used to share patient data, with their consent, across different systems in healthcare. Like health records, blockchain platforms can help people secure and share their genomic data securely.

Medical Research and Clinical Trials

With blockchain, permanent records of medical research and clinical trials can be created. This can reduce the incidence of scam and error. Thus, blockchain technology can make the results of medical research and clinical trials reliable.

Medical Supply Chain

By some estimates, ten percent of medical goods are either low quality or false. It is believed that at least one percent of the medicines in the market are fake. Blockchain-based systems can guarantee chain of custody records by tracing every level of the drug supply chain. In addition, functionalities such as private keys and smart contracts can help to better maintain agreements between different parties and strengthen the credibility of pharmaceutical suppliers.

Medical Insurance Claims

In medical insurance, there is an exchange of claims information between different parties for the claims process. The process grapples with issues such as fraud, inconsistency in coverage validation, data corruption and data security. Blockchain technology has the potential to solve these problems and allow for greater trust among both insurers and insured by increasing transparency.

Patient-centric Healthcare

With the development of wearable technology such as fitness and health monitoring gadgets, more and more patient health information will be generated and shared. Because of this, privacy and data ownership will become increasingly important.

Blockchain is decentralized, making it possible to build distributed healthcare applications that do not rely on a single centralized authority. The transparency of blockchain enables patients to understand by whom, when and how their data is being used.

The privacy and security of health data is a major challenge in healthcare, especially when data has to be exchanged across multiple systems. Blockchain technology enables secure exchange and access between different entities. This technology gives patients the ability to have complete control over their historical health records.

Blockchain technology has the potential to transform healthcare. Blockchain technology can be used to build a patient-centric healthcare ecosystem that is secure and interoperable.