Steemit Crypto Academy – Season 4 - Week 3 - Post for Professor @yohan2on - Blockchain Technology and Healthcare industry

Welcome to my homework post for Professor @yohan2on who has delivered a lecture on problems faced by Healthcare industry and how blockchain can be useful to solve these problems.

As we all know that healthcare industry is very important one and no one can deny its importance. Health is the basic right of every person and in every country of the world, health is places as a basic right of every citizen hence health sector is given too much importance. Healthcare sector involves Hospitals, healthcare institutions, medical research institutes and manufacturers of medical drugs and instruments. There are many problems that are being faced by this sector and we will discuss about these problems one by one and how Blockchain technology can help in solving these problems.

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Research and Discuss the potential applications of Blockchain in the Health care industry.

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Blockchain is not only limited to cryptocurrency and money, it has more uses in our day to day life and betterment can be achieved by applying blockchain. Blockchain provides security to the data saved on blocks with cryptographic functions and Distributed ledger. Below are some problems that are being faced in Health care industry and by the use of Blockchain technology, these problems can be solved.

Data Managment.

In health care sector, especially in hospitals, manual system is still in use where lot of data is generated every day. Every patient has its different data of disease and reports that are generated by Medical labs. Moreover, there are also data of prescribed medicine and every time a patient visits the doctor, he has to bring all his data with him. This all data is in raw shape and are kept in files in the record rooms. There is no special software where this data can be saved. In this way, it can be said that data is not secure in this manual system.

Blockchain can solve this problem as it provides security to the data once stored on a block and it cannot be changed or altered afterwards. Transparency function of blockchain technology makes it possible that any information can be seen on a block in public blockchain but it can not be changed. So data is secure on Blockchain and it does not need much space to store this data. Moreover, this data is available every time and there is no need to bring manual data with the patient or Physician for medical history.

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High Cost Data Management.

Data of patients is currently saved on different computers and manual record keeping is also being used in many countries. So, it is a costly way of data management and it requires physical space to store these files too. Employees are also hired for the sake of record keeping and data entry operators are hired to store data on computers. So, it is very costly and it will increase as the time passes.

Blockchain technology can solve this problem easily as data is saved on blocks on a Distribute ledger which can be accessed easily. There is no need to store data manually on computers or keep files in a store. So, it is a cost effective way to manage and store data and blockchain technology can be used to reduce the cost for management of data.

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Time consuming.

Manual data recording and saving is very time consuming. It takes time to search the data of a patient manually on computer or to locate file in the store. So, this problem is being faced in health institutions where manual system is in use. Patients have also wait for their record to be available. So, it is a time consuming system.

On the other hand, Blockchain technology can be used to solve this problem. Data is available on the blockchain every time and it takes no time to access the data thus saves the time of patients as well as physicians.

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Accessibility of Data.

In manual system as is being used in most health care institutions, data is not easily accessible for patient and physician as well. When a patient changes and moves to another physician, he has to provide his data which involves medical history, lab reports and prescribed medicines he has used in past. Most of the times, new reports are required by the new physician which is very costly and time taking task. Patient has to reproduce all the data thus increasing the cost and wastage of time.

Blockchain provides solution to this problem. When a patient's data is saved on blockchain network, anyone can access the data that includes lab reports, medical history and medicines used by the patient. So, there will be no need to regenerate all the data and it will reduce the cost with no time wastage. Physician can also access the data and see all the medical history with less effort. It can increase the efficacy resulting in very good and fast results.

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Data Security.

Security of data has too much importance as there are cases when the data has been leaked and can be used for blackmailing both patients and physicians. It is very easy to steal the data in manual system and there is no proper security system that can avoid the breaches of data.

Blockchain offers high security solution to this problem as we all know, once data saved on a block cannot be altered or changed afterwards. Cryptographic function of blockchain provides highest possible security and data is stored and saved on blockchain cannot be breached. This is how security of data can be increased using blockchain technology and betterment can be brought in healthcare sector.

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Transparency in Medical Supply Chain.

There have been many cases reported in which it has been stated that the medical drugs have been tempered with. So, it is possible that the medicine ordered by a company or physician is not delivered in original and it has been tempered with before reaching the buyer.

Blockchain can help in solving this problem and transparency in medical supply chain can be achieved by applying blockchain technology to this sector. In such application, it may be possible for the buyer to monitor the movement of medical drugs from its originator till it reaches the buyer. Third party will be eliminated and thus transparency can be achieved in supply chain.

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Disease outbreak.

During the pandemic of Covid-19, it has been noticed that it has taken many months to observe and report the outbreak of this disease. Due to manual system, it has took time to declare the disease outbreak.

On the other hand, if Blockchain technology is applied in health sector, real-time reports will be generated and it will take very short time to notice and report disease outbreak. Solution to the disease can also be made at an early stage before the spread of the disease at large. In this way, blockchain technology can bring lot of positive changes in the health sector.

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Challenges in Adoption of Blockchain.

We have discussed several points above in which Blockchain can help to solve these problems being faced in Healthcare sector. But still there are some challenges that are limiting the adoption of Blockchain technology in Healthcare sector.

1. Blockchain technology is still in its early days as adoption by masses has not been achieved. People relate Blockchain to cryptocurrency and money only. So it will take time to be adopted in every walk of life.

2. As we know that in a Public Blockchain, anyone can see the data on a block. So important data can be accessed and can be used for some other purposes that can result in some bad activities like blackmailing.

3. As lot of medical data is produced everyday, so when this data will be saved in blocks on a network, it will create scalability problem.

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Applications that have been applied in Healthcare sector.

Now we will discuss about some Blockchain applications that have already been adopted by Healthcare sector.

Medi Ledger adopted by FarmaTrust.

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Medi ledger is a protocol that has been built about Blockchain technology. FarmaTrust has adopted this application which allows its users to montir the Supply chain of products. They buyer can easily track and monitor where his shipment has reached and it has brought transparency in Supply chain. The drugs supplied are not easy to be tempered with. By scanning QR code of a medicine, all the data will be shown like manufacturing and expiry of medicine. So with the help of Medi Ledger, supply chain can be tracked and other details of the medicine can also be made available.

Medicalchain Ecosystem for Health Record.

As we have discussed that health record is a very big issue in manual system. So Medicalchain is the solution for this issue being faced.

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Medicalchain is a Blockchain based system where data of patients is saved using Blockchain technology. So better management and accessibility of health record can be achieved through this application. Data stored on this application can be accessed at any time by simply using internet.

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Medibloc is another example of health record where data can be saved and accessed any time afterwards. Thus facilitating both patients and physicians to get updated data within very short time. This platform is in different languages thus providing its users the facility to use any language of their choice.

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Conclusion.

Blockchain technology is being adopted at large by organizations working in every field of life due its features of high security and transparency. Health sector also needs to adopt Blockchain technology to overcome the problems being faced at this time. Blockchain technology offers high security and transparency functions that are very important for Healthcare sector.

So, in my view, it is a matter of time when Blockchain technology will be adopted in every field of life that can bring betterment and produce good results.

Cc:- @yohan2on, @kouba01

Thanks in anticipation.

Regards,

@mawattoo8