Can blockchain prepare us for the next Covid wave or next pandemic?

The second wave of Covid has exposed issues in our healthcare and all associated systems. We have seen people struggling to secure a hospital bed, oxygen supply, critical medicines amidst fake medicines, stocking of essential supplies, shortage of vaccine, etc. There is a mess all around- fake news floating on social media, miscommunication, sharing of incorrect and unverified information and all this is resulting in even more chaos.

What is a blockchain and why is it relevant?

Blockchain provides a secure immutable distributed transaction ledger that is transparent to all participating members and regulatory agencies. All transactions are encrypted, can’t be changed once created, and are visible to all participants in the network. Such a mega-network brings a multiple and diverse set of participants together as a consortium and they also allow regulatory agencies to audit transactions almost real-time, simultaneously. A digital imprint of physical assets or goods makes it is easy to verify and validate the authenticity of assets and transactions at each stage of the supply chain hence making it difficult to tamper with or hold.

CoWin to HealthWin

CoWin is a simple application based on database technology allowing users to book and manage Covid vaccination. Mostly a user searches for a location, books a vaccine slot, but in most cases not, as is it already full. But users do not get to see when new slots are added to a particular location, or vaccines are in transit, the name of the manufacturer or verify the authenticity of the vaccine they are receiving. The way the system is designed is- a bunch of data entry operators are uploading vaccine information in the system.

Now, let’s reimagine a system where each and every physical vaccine has a unique digital imprint created right at the origin and tracked through the supply chain as it moves hands to finally reach the doctor who verifies its authenticity before administering it. Regulator machine learning-enabled bots monitoring and auditing all transactions, almost real-time, while it is in transit ensuring compliance and service level agreements.

The same is true for oxygen, hospital beds, prescription medicines, oxygen concentrators, hospital disposables, and more. HealthWin a blockchain-based consortium-driven platform that brings together government, public and private players as participants will drive end-to-end transparency. It simplifies overall management and governance of such life-saving assets. No need for backend entry into the system at a centralized location, rather everything is decentralized with items entering the system right at the time of creation and monitored, tracked through the supply chain throughout its lifecycle.

A single unique digital identity for the country

Aadhaar, PAN, Passport, driving license are synonymous with identity in India. We have numerous digital credentials but no one single digital identity which uniquely identifies an individual or a business entity. Let’s imagine a non-temperable identity system linked with a verified credential source, auto audited, and universally accepted. It is an important and critical construct for the entire system to be objective. This enables individual medical records to be securely stored and retrievable by authorized participating organizations, doctors, and agencies geared towards health causes.

AarogyaSetu to IndiaAarogya

A contact tracing, syndromic mapping, and self-assessment app was a good start, but the second wave needed more. An India Aarogya app that can provide real-time information on hospital bed availability, oxygen logistics, medicine verification, authentic information, doctor on call, home assistance, immediate insurance approvals, and more- all based on a homogeneous infrastructure with government, public and private players participating in a well-orchestrated manner.

Heath logistic hub

Indian Railway’s IRCTC is the biggest eCommerce portal in India, but I am very sure that a logistic hub dedicated to healthcare would be even bigger. A distributed network that provides end-to-end logistic supports bringing together airlines, railways, trucks, ship, pharma companies, warehouses, ports, airports, agencies, in a harmonized manner would bring the next level of efficiency by cutting down on bureaucracy, approval processes, etc.

Challenges

A system like this is never simple. But considering India has successfully implemented Aadhaar program, it does not seem non-invincible. It requires a massive scale consortium to bring in a diverse set of businesses together under one unified transaction ledger. It requires both carrot and stick approach back into the program. People adoption would be easy but onboarding businesses and agencies would require planning, policies and a roadmap.

This article was first published in economictimes - Can blockchain prepare us for the next Covid wave or next pandemic?