The document discusses how blockchain technology can be applied in the healthcare industry beyond cryptocurrencies. It explains that blockchain allows for more secure and efficient sharing of sensitive patient data through its decentralized and transparent nature. Specifically, it outlines how blockchain can improve health information exchanges, clinical trials, drug manufacturing, autologous therapies, and medical claims processes by providing transparency, reducing costs and errors, and strengthening security and privacy of patient data. However, it also notes challenges to adopting blockchain in healthcare including technological issues and gaining industry-wide acceptance and participation.

2. Introduction
Blockchain has proven to be a technological breakthrough that will
aid businesses in their shift to increased efficiency and security.
According to a PwC poll of 600 Executives conducted in 2018, 84
percent of respondents’ firms are actively engaging with distributed
ledgers.
In healthcare, Blockchain is all about cutting away the middlemen.
It’s about enhancing the security of different healthcare
transactional processes while reducing bureaucracy and manual
inefficiencies, boosting service quality, and decentralizing patient
data.
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a cryptographically linked decentralized list of digital
records. A ‘block’ is a single record. Every block has a cryptographic
hash of the preceding block, which is a mathematical technique, as
well as a timestamp and transaction data. Blockchain was created as
a secure open ledger for recording digital transactions that is
administered by a peer-to-peer network.

3. Traditional Blockchain technology has been linked to
Cryptocurrencies in the past. When the price of Bitcoin rose from
$900 to $20,000 in December 2017, it gained widespread attention.
The current pricing is hovering around $50,000 in 2022.
Blockchain in Healthcare
However, there’s a catch: Blockchain isn’t only for Cryptocurrencies.
In reality, as a secure public ledger, Blockchain is exactly what the
healthcare business requires.
According to HIPAA, at least one data breach of healthcare records
occurred every day in 2018. Between 2009 and 2018, data breaches
exposed the healthcare records of more than 59 percent of the US
population.
Health businesses should consider using Blockchain technology in
the age of data security. There’s a lot more to it than just
transactions’ — Blockchain is about securely sharing data that was
previously thought to be difficult to obtain.

4. Critical Areas to target in healthcare w.r.t. Blockchain
From patient medical histories to medicine formulas, healthcare is
driven by data, particularly sensitive patient information. If you’ve
ever moved medical records or had an insurance dispute, you know
how difficult it is to share such information.
Medical treatments have improved over time, yet disseminating
knowledge remains a significant barrier. What if there was an easy
and secure method to communicate medical data?
Blockchain technology promises to provide a solution to that issue
in five major areas:
1. Health Information Exchanges
Patients should have complete data transparency while navigating
healthcare providers and systems.

5. What Blockchain can do for you: The Blockchain can provide a
shared consent method that is easily accessible. Patients might use
such a tool to make informed, transparent decisions about which
providers and businesses have access to their medical data.
Similarly, the approach may make it easier for healthcare
professionals and organizations to select which data they can utilize
fast.
2. Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are plagued by poor patient recruitment and
participation, as well as excessive costs.
What Blockchain can do for you: Managers might gain more
information using Blockchain's shared consent mechanism,
allowing them to initiate clinical trials with a more targeted
population, lowering clinical expenses and improving patient
outcomes.

6. The trial process might be streamlined by Blockchain, making
monitoring, analysis, and gathering more efficient. Clinical trials
can also save time and money by employing Blockchain to collect
real-time patient data for reporting and regulatory compliance.
3. Drug Manufacturing
Detecting and tracking counterfeit drugs has gotten more difficult
and expensive.
What Blockchain can do for you: The potential of Blockchain to
maintain a precise, unalterable record of system transactions might
help trace medications along the supply chain, reducing mistakes
and improving safety.
4. Autologous Therapies
The manufacturing and supply-chain operations for CAR T-cell and
related medicines require sensitive patient information.

7. What Blockchain can do for you: Blockchain’s visibility, security,
and data openness may reduce the time, cost, and efficacy of
bringing these medicines to market.
5. Medical Claims
The medical system is plagued with duplicate and erroneous data
due to the scattered structure of providers. Meanwhile, insurers
must deal with claims verification and processing, which
necessitates extensive involvement from policyholders and
suppliers. As a result, there are more mistakes, more costs, and a
greater risk of fraud and mismanagement.
What Blockchain can do for you: Blockchain can provide an
irrefutable record of healthcare transactions, including detailed
information on what financial remuneration was sought and
received by all parties. This may significantly reduce mistakes and
fraud while also laying the groundwork for truly value-based
healthcare.

8. Why is Blockchain Challenging to Adapt?
· Despite the numerous benefits that Blockchain provides,
healthcare businesses face the following challenges: Blockchain is a
relatively young technology that has a history with Bitcoin, a
cryptocurrency. Some medical research communities are suspicious
about Blockchain’s application to their area since many people
equate it with Bitcoin.
· Every institution involved in patient care and medical research
must be on board and willing to adapt to the various changes that
this new technology will necessitate in order for Blockchain to
work.
· How will patients who are unconscious supply the security key
required to access their files? Potential alternatives include medical
bands with biometric security.
· Blockchain may have problems handling huge data sets (such as
MRI and CAT scan pictures) in a single transaction due to its ledger
history. As a result, huge files will need to be stored and tracked in
backend repositories and encoded libraries.

9. Because Blockchain doesn’t permanently remove or replace
changed records — rather, it merely adds additional blocks to the
chain — the demand for more storage is rising, posing both
financial and technological issues.
· There must be a method to incorporate Blockchain into healthcare
systems without introducing additional procedures for already
overworked healthcare staff when entering data.
Summary
Healthcare is about to undergo a digital change. We’ve
accomplished a lot in the previous decade, but now we’re entering a
new phase in which technology will be utilized to enhance
clinicians’ capabilities and allow them to practice at the highest
level of their license. Not simply by dealing with more patients, but
also by dealing with them more effectively and efficiently.
Blockchain’s unique capacity to both preserve and retain personal
data in a flexible manner might be the key to enabling healthcare to
keep up with the times.

10. Blockchain might give us with a framework to safely preserve
healthcare’s exciting future as a delivery system that can assure
proper encryption and security.
Like other businesses, if you too are looking for IT Solutions for
Healthcare Services, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of
choice. We have significant experience over the years working with
Healthcare IT Companies. We have a team of highly skilled and
certified software professionals, who have developed many custom
healthcare solutions for our global clients over the years.

11. Content Source: Medium
Contented by: Mindfire Solutions