Do you know? The size of the blockchain technology market in the healthcare industry is valued at USD 28 million in 2020 and is expected to reach 52.1% more in 2027. The existing advantages of blockchain technology are further enhanced by emerging technologies. Healthcare blockchain services are offering innovative use-case with the blend of the Internet of Things (IoT). For instance, IoT is helping medical practitioners diagnose ailments in the early stages.
Similarly, another important use-case of blockchain in healthcare refers to data storage, sharing, and verification. Whether it is about the hospital’s confidential data or data related to patients, their medical records, reports, and insurance claims, blockchain offers data storage functionality in an efficient way.
How does Blockchain Help the Healthcare Industry?
Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that stores data. Once the data is stored on the blockchain it cannot be altered or manipulated by any entity. Its advanced cryptography mechanisms protect the data from any breach or attack. It also offers seamless transaction management and payment capability that introduces transparency and accountability in the overall organizational infrastructure.
Blockchain healthcare applications help organizations make improved decisions as blockchain allows doctors that reside in different locations to access and view the data in real-time. Moreover, the patient records are transformed into a digital form that could be accessed by both patients and doctors for reference. Medical claims and credentials also speed up with its enhanced capabilities, ultimately empowering the patients with ownership of their data and insurance.
Use-Cases of Blockchain in Healthcare
Below are some of the potential use cases of blockchain in real-world healthcare operations.
Pharmaceutics – Blockchain helps recruiters to recruit participants for clinical trials. Supply chain management becomes more transparent when monitored and accessed through a blockchain-based system. It also allows the spotting of counterfeit drugs and supports auditable and reliable documentation for immutable records.
Insurance Claims – Blockchain speeds up the traditional insurance process of patients by obtaining confirmations faster through automation. It cuts down the hefty costs of intermediaries and allows patients and management to manage agreements and insurance records using smart contracts.
Supply Chain Management – Blockchain streamlines the processes and business functions through smart contracts where predetermined rules and conditions are embedded to automate the entire workflow. From inventory management to production and transportation to supply, blockchain tracks each activity that is easy to monitor for the stakeholders.
Electronic Health Records – Patients and doctors both can access health records in an electronic form. The patients can share those with any other reference and the data remains in its original form.
Enhanced Security – Healthcare blockchain offers a high level of security as no unauthorized entity could access the network. Moreover, its strong security protocols eliminate the risks of potential cyberattacks.
Clinical Trials Management – Blockchain technology keeps track of all the data related to the organization and patients.
Whether it is the confidential data of organizations or the clinical trials or blood tests of patients, history is stored on the blockchain that is immutable and cannot be altered by any entity outside of the blockchain network.
What’s the Future of Blockchain in Healthcare?
Blockchain technology is successful in solving the traditional issues and challenges faced by the medical industry. Whether it is the regular organizational functions of supply chain management, blockchain addresses all these issues with its manifold capabilities and features. The industry is in sheer need of transparent ways that reduce the communication gaps between doctors and patients.
The medical record of a patient is highly vulnerable that can easily be accessed and tampered with in a database system. However, blockchain offers a high level of security that no unauthorized entity could access it. Moreover, the data could not be altered once it is deployed on the blockchain. In this way, the sensitive medical records reside in the same form as they were original, eliminating the health risks and penalties.
The future is exciting when blockchain combines with many other potential technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, IoT, etc. to bring rich features and power to healthcare organizations. Today, healthcare blockchain companies are offering full-cycle blockchain development solutions that offer planning, consultation, development, designing, and deployment services in state-of-the-art blockchain technologies.
