Blockchain System
Blockchain System
Blockchain System
Blockchain is gaining traction as a tool that could help solve some of the healthcare industry's age-old problems that have resulted in
wasteful spending and higher costs for providers, insurers and patients.
Blockchain technology has the potential to transform health care, placing the patient at
the center of the health care ecosystem and increasing the security, privacy, and
interoperability of health data. This technology could provide a new model for health
information exchanges (HIE) by making electronic medical records more efficient,
disintermediated, and secure. While it is not a panacea, this new, rapidly evolving field
provides fertile ground for experimentation, investment, and proof-of-concept testing.
Many healthcare and blockchain companies are currently working on or have already released blockchain-based systems to
improve healthcare for both professionals and patients. By decentralizing patient health history, tracking pharmaceuticals,
and improving payment options, blockchain is becoming a valuable tool for healthcare, revolutionizing the industry worldwide.
A blockchain powered health information exchange could unlock the true value of
interoperability. Blockchain-based systems have the potential to reduce or eliminate
the friction and costs of current intermediaries.
The promise of blockchain has widespread implications for stakeholders in the health
care ecosystem. Capitalizing on this technology has the potential to connect
fragmented systems to generate insights and to better assess the value of care. In the
long term, a nationwide blockchain network for electronic medical records may improve
efficiencies and support better health outcomes for patients.
What is blockchain?
At its core, blockchain is a distributed system recording and storing transaction records.
More specifically, blockchain is a shared, immutable record of peer-to-peer transactions
built from linked transaction blocks and stored in a digital ledger. Blockchain relies on
established cryptographic techniques to allow each participant in a network to interact
(e.g. store, exchange, and view information), without preexisting trust between the
parties. In a blockchain system, there is no central authority; instead, transaction
records are stored and distributed across all network participants. Interactions with the
blockchain become known to all participants and require verification by the network
before information is added, enabling trustless collaboration between network
participants while recording an immutable audit trail of all interactions.
In the simplest terms, blockchain is a shared record of transactions. It enables participants in a group to securely share data with each
other without a middleman and keep track of what was exchanged and when. Instead of that record being located on a single, hackable
computer, it is maintained across multiple computers, which makes the information extremely difficult to tamper with or delete. That
tamper-proof characteristic, along with a process that ensures any information put into the blockchain is valid, enables trust between
the group participants.
So in the case of the blockchain-enabled provider directory, if one insurance company in the alliance calls a doctor's office to verify an
address and updates that information in the record, all members of the alliance would see the change. That means less work for the rest
of the insurers and the doctor's office.
Change Healthcare, meanwhile, is using blockchain to enable healthcare providers and insurers to track a claim across its entire life
cycle in real time, from filing the claim to each physician being paid. Today, providers and insurers maintain their own data, and the
insurer's idea of the status of a claim may differ from the provider's view. But blockchain would allow both parties to have a shared
understanding of where that claim is in the life cycle and automate the claims adjudication process
blockchain is best put to use when addressing problems of trust, transparency and incentive alignment, and the healthcare industry is
full of such issues, he said. Others noted that blockchain will drive the most value when applied to healthcare processes that suffer from
redundancies or require different sets of data to be reconciled.
Addressing provider directory inaccuracies and creating a more portable patient health record are two areas the group may focus on.
One solution is already in the works. IBM plans to launch a blockchain-enabled bundled-payments tool midyear that will streamline the
typically labor-intensive process of evaluating clinical outcomes and paying providers based on that outcome in real time, Hayes said.
The reason why the blockchain has gained so much admiration is that:
It is not owned by a single entity, hence it is decentralized
The blockchain is immutable, so no one can tamper with the data that is inside the
blockchain
The blockchain is transparent so one can track the data if they want to
widespread and the various actions that have been taken to curb it are still extremely
ineffective.
50% of respondents that have been studied by Adler-Milstein reportedly engaged with
health IT companies by participating in information blocking. A quarter of these
respondents also said that hospitals and health systems are guilty of this practice.
According to the researchers, information blocking can be curbed by one of the following
methods:
By increasing transparency so that each and every action that has been taken by the
completely secure.
The patient can have some control over how their medical data gets used and shared by
the institutes. Any party which is looking to get the medical data about a patient could
check with the blockchain to get the necessary permission.
The patient can also be incentivized to for good behavior via a reward mechanism. Eg.
they can get tokens for following a care plan or for staying healthy. Also, they can be
rewarded by tokens for giving their data for clinical trials and research
Pharma companies need to have an extremely secure supply chain because of the kind of
product they carry. Pharma drugs are consistently stolen from the supply chain to be sold
illegally to various consumers. Also, counterfeit drugs alone cost these companies, nearly
$200 billion annually. A transparent blockchain will help these companies to enable close
tracking of drugs to their point of origin and thus help eliminate falsified medication.
Image Credit: PwC
Various medical institutes around the world conduct their own research and clinical trials
on various new drugs and medications. A blockchain will help create a single global
database to collect all this data and put them in one place.
Insurance fraud is a major problem that is affecting the healthcare industry. This happens
when dishonest providers and patients submit false claims/information to receive payable
benefits. To get an understanding of how serious this problem is, try to wrap your head
around this: According to Boyd Insurance, Medicare fraud in the U.S. alone costs about
$68 billion a year.
In fact, according to the charts, the top two kinds of healthcare frauds are healthcare
related.
Blockchain in HealthcareConclusion
So, there you have it. We have listed down the various advantages that the blockchain can
potentially impart to the healthcare industry. Obviously, until we see a proper
implementation of this partnership, this is all hearsay. What we can state for a fact, is that
various other institutes and spaces have already started experimenting and working with the
blockchain technology.
This space has no lack of money. In fact, consider the following statistics:
The funding of digital health startups reached an all-time high in the first quarter of 2018
Global annual health spending surpassed $7 trillion dollars in 2015
By 2020, the global annual health spending is expected to have ballooned to over $8.734
trillion.
As such, they should be under no financial constraints to research new and exciting
technologies. All signs are pointing towards a decentralized medical future. Let’s see why.
According to a report by BIS research, by 2025, the healthcare industry can save upto $100
billion per year by 2025 in data breach-related costs, IT costs, operations costs, support
function and personnel costs, counterfeit-related frauds and insurance frauds if they
incorporate the blockchain technology.
The report also states that the use of
“a global blockchain in the healthcare market is expected grow at a
CAGR of 63.85% from 2018 to 2025, to reach a value of $5.61 billion by
2025. The use of blockchain for healthcare data exchange will
contribute the largest market share throughout the forecast period,
reaching a value of $1.89 billion by 2025, owing to the use of
blockchain to solve the most widespread problem in healthcare
information systems related to interoperability and non-
standardization that has created data silos in the industry.”
According to the report and the way the blockchain is being adopted by various sectors, it
definitely looks like the future of the healthcare industry is indeed decentralized. Let’s hope
that the blockchain technology provides the horizontal innovation boost to this industry
that it desperately needs.
Associated with cryptocurrency transactions, blockchains are mainly the management of the
transaction data within a shared network; the free network of computers that handle computing the
encryption algorithms that secure the shared servers. This definition introduces the main goal of
the healthureum program which is creating dedicated blockchains networks to the healthcare
industry, with free but respectful access to data by healthcare operators as well as healthcare
clients. This kind of program should ensure the benefits for both sides of the relationship.
Patients are likely to be better served by the healthcare industry when it is about using blockchain
system. Obviously, this is due to that their lives are involved in the relationship. The case analysis
can, however, supply more detailed bonuses.
• Ownership: Patients still have the upper hand regarding the ownership of the data stored in the
blockchain system. In fact, they can deliberately distribute and make data available to the operator
of their choice. Moreover, the passed data is securely transferred along with all updates that may
help the receiving operators offering the appropriate prestation.
• Wider choice: The money-saving property of the blockchain system and the access
to the records of the healthcare operators give patients the opportunity to choose
among affordable operators. It is possible to verify the identity of the actors after
having picked the suitable balanced records; in other words, the transparent
relationships stored along with their parties’ data are the main and critical resource for
patients to identify the actors.
Conclusion:In general, healthcare industry operators emphasize the patient-side benefits when
they promote their services. In the case of blockchain system application, they cannot deny that
they are not the direct benefits providers; they might tell that the cryptocurrency technology is the
responsible of the revolution. The blockchain system applied in the healthcare industry has come
with associated benefits, and none can claim the ownership. In the opposite, all parties have to
thank this technology
Blockchain’s Potential Healthcare Benefits
Blockchain in healthcare can address a variety of problems, such as care coordination, data security, and
interoperability issues. Every day, the healthcare industry is generating new data – medical records, laboratory test
results, billing, clinical trials, remote monitoring, and other sources – which is often trapped in numerous disparate,
isolated databases. Blockchain can harness the data stream to improve quality of care provided by streamlining the
sharing of medical records, protecting sensitive data from hackers, and giving patients more control over their
information. For example, blockchain technology can aggregate a patient’s medical and prescription records from
multiple sites/providers to generate a single, up-to-date record which an ER physician can refer to when treating a
patient.
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Interoperability. Blockchain could facilitate nationwide interoperability of electronic
health records, which would allow providers access to patients’ medical histories, current medications, and prior
imaging studies. According to one study, full interoperability could save the US healthcare system $77.8 billion per year.
Supply Chain Integrity. Blockchain can verify every transaction among drug manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacists
and patients, as well as secure drug supply, which could reduce counterfeit drugs ($200 billion in annual losses).
Drug Development. Blockchain can facilitate new drug development by making patient results more widely
accessible.Smart Contracts. Blockchain can create rule-based protocols where contracts are executed when conditions
are met. For example, a patient with health insurance has policy details linked to their profile that are triggered when
they seek medical care, ensuring correct payment to providers.