KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Blockchain enhances data security and patient empowerment by decentralizing health records, reducing breaches, and enabling ownership, leading to more accurate and accessible lifelong medical histories.
- It revolutionizes pharmaceutical supply chains through immutable traceability, combating counterfeit drugs and ensuring authenticity from production to delivery, potentially saving billions in losses.
- Automated claims processing via smart contracts minimizes fraud and administrative costs, streamlines billing, and reduces disputes in healthcare systems.
- Blockchain improves clinical trials and medical research by providing tamper-proof repositories, preventing data manipulation, and fostering collaborative advancements to improve patient outcomes.
- Despite benefits, scalability, energy consumption, and organizational barriers pose significant challenges, requiring further research and standards for widespread adoption.
Satoshi Nakamoto developed the idea for blockchain technology in 2008, which served as the basis for Bitcoin. Since then, it has grown into a decentralized ledger system that enables people to make secure transactions without intermediaries.
In the healthcare industry, blockchain is increasingly seen as a disruptive technology that can solve long-standing problems, including data silos, privacy breaches, and slow information sharing. Blockchain promises to change the way patient data is stored, exchanged, and secured across global networks by making it unchangeable, open, and decentralized.
This article examines how blockchain can be used in healthcare, its pros and cons, and whether it can truly transform the industry. It does this by looking at systematic reviews and expert analyses.
As healthcare institutions face increased expenses, cybersecurity risks, and the need for interoperability, made worse by events such as the worldwide pandemic, blockchain could help improve patient-centered care.
Understanding Blockchain in the Healthcare Field
Blockchain is a distributed database that stores data in blocks linked in the order they were added, creating a chain that cannot be changed. Each block contains transactions that are time-stamped and verified by consensus, ensuring no single person or group dominates the system.
In healthcare, this means moving away from centralised electronic health records (EHRs) toward decentralised networks where patients can own and control their data.
Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric are two platforms that support smart contracts. Smart contracts are agreements that run themselves and automate tasks, such as granting people access to data. Blockchain’s immutability stops unauthorised changes, making it perfect for sensitive medical information.
Traditional systems, on the other hand, are more likely to have their data changed. Analysts such as Chen et al. (2019) stress that blockchain prevents unauthorised modifications to logistical data, thereby building trust among stakeholders and reducing errors.
Essential Uses of Blockchain in Healthcare
Blockchain can be used in many ways in healthcare, from managing data to tracking the supply chain. One of the primary uses is in electronic health records (EHRs), where decentralized systems like MedRec and FHIR Chain enable people to access patient data across institutions with consent.
This fixes the problem of records being split, as a 2017 MIT study noted. It said there were 26 distinct EMR systems in Boston alone, making data sharing hard and expensive.
Blockchain is also beneficial in pharmaceutical supply chains, as it makes it easier to track pharmaceuticals and fight counterfeit drugs, which cost the industry $200 billion a year. Blockchain combines elements such as barcode labelling and hash values to ensure that products are legitimate and can be tracked from the manufacturer to the patient in real time.
The World Health Organisation says that bogus pharmaceuticals kill 100,000 people per year in Africa. This shows how important it is to be open about these things.
Blockchain automates operations in claims and billing administration to reduce fraud, which costs 5–10% of healthcare costs. Smart contracts are built into systems that embed insurance plans, process bills immediately, and reduce disputes.
This is shown through partnerships such as Capital One and Gem Health. Blockchain also supports medical research by enabling the immutable storage of clinical trial data. This stops unreported results and data spying that could compromise patients’ safety.
Remote patient monitoring is a new use for blockchain, IoT devices, and wearables that allows for real-time data storage and automated treatments.
Platforms like Io Health enable e-health management, and projects like “healthcoin,” created by Diego Espinosa and Nick Gogerty in 2016, provide patients with digital tokens to improve biomarkers for illnesses like Type-2 diabetes. Finally, blockchain stops cheating in clinical trials, leading to better results by ensuring data accuracy and accountability.
Advantages of Using Blockchain in Healthcare
Using blockchain has several benefits for patients, organisations, and governments. At the patient level, it gives people control over their data, leading to lifelong records that reduce the number of breaches. Between 2009 and 2017, more than 176 million records were compromised. This decentralization makes data safer by making it immutable and easy to share without incurring reconciliation costs.
Blockchain makes it easier to share data via private networks, which improves interoperability and lowers the number of medical errors, which is the third most significant cause of death in the U.S.
It makes personalised health planning easier by combining genetic data and helps clinical studies by handling sensitive information. It allows governments to cut fraud and waste, improve supply chains with AI forecasting, and monitor public health by connecting wearables to secure ledgers.
Blockchain makes medical records easier to read, analyse, and use while ensuring they can’t be altered and remain highly secure. Frizzo-Barker et al. say that just 20% of the barriers to adoption are technological.
However, the technology’s ability to be real and provide patients more authority is more important than the hype. Automated claims processing cuts costs by shortening cycles and eliminating middlemen, which is another benefit.
Problems and Dangers That Come With Implementation
Blockchain has significant potential but also many problems to solve. One technological problem is that scalability is limited because processing transactions becomes more difficult as the number of users and sensors increases.
Security issues, including 51% assaults on private blockchains, could undo transactions. Public blockchains, on the other hand, consume significant energy during mining.
Socially, there’s a lack of acceptability because decentralization has made people less trusting of third parties, and there are also privacy worries about who can access data.
According to Frizzo-Barker et al., 80% of hurdles are caused by organisational constraints, such as interoperability issues, high setup costs, and a lack of IT skills. Haleem and Hartley said that organisations have to hire consultants because they don’t understand blockchain, which slows the technology’s spread.
Luckey et al. ask whether blockchain is “fit-for-purpose” for the future of healthcare, citing problems with prototypes, adherence to rules, and environmental impacts. The review finds that, even with significant benefits, people remain hesitant to use them.
Most research is still in the idea stage, and there aren’t many real-world studies. Hybrid cloud-blockchain storage and other solutions could help with scalability, but we need governance norms and standards right away.
Future Prospects and Conclusions
The future of blockchain in healthcare depends on addressing these problems through real-world research, scalable prototypes, and clear rules. The author of the systematic review said, “We are still at the beginning of the road towards the full utilisation of blockchain technology in the healthcare sector.”
This shows how important it is to do more research into the feasibility and who owns patient data. As research grows exponentially, blockchain might enable revolutionary concepts such as patient-centered interoperability and global data exchange.
If problems are solved, blockchain could change healthcare for the better and make the whole world a fairer, safer, and more efficient place.
FAQs
What is blockchain technology in healthcare?
Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that securely stores and shares medical data, ensuring immutability and transparency without a central authority.
How does blockchain improve patient data security?
It decentralizes records, preventing tampering and breaches through cryptographic verification, empowering patients to control their information.
Can blockchain reduce healthcare costs?
Yes, by automating claims, eliminating intermediaries, and reducing fraud, which accounts for 5-10% of expenses.
What are the main challenges of blockchain in healthcare?
Key issues include scalability limitations, high energy use, and organizational barriers like a lack of standards and expertise.
Is blockchain already used in real healthcare applications?
While mostly conceptual, prototypes like MedRec for EHRs and Healthcoin for diabetes management show practical potential.
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