Exploring the Potential of Blockchain in the Healthcare Industry
When the topic of blockchain comes up, you might immediately think of Cryptocurrencies. However, blockchain aren't just for digital currencies. They are now used in a variety of industries, including healthcare.
Making sense of healthcare data and managing patient outcomes are driving today's healthcare practice. We can see this today in the management of the global response to COVID. The response is heavily data-driven in order to make decisions about an appropriate global response to the virus.
Here's what you need to know about the use of blockchain in healthcare, as well as some of the components leading the way.
What is Healthcare Data Management ??
The process of managing the lifecycle of health data is known as healthcare data management. Data is generated, collected, stored, organized, processed, archived, and destroyed. Moreover, data is kept secure and protected to ensure strict confidentiality and integrity, and it is only accessible to those who need it. All of this and more is possible with healthcare database management systems, which can analyse disparate and diverse datasets from multiple internal and external sources to provide operational and decision support to applications, devices, and people.
Healthcare data management, also known as digital healthcare data management, includes population health records, other clinical records for drug efficacy, and even medical instrumentation logs and RF-ID tags on various physical assets ranging from beds to bedpans that are required for supply chain management.
How Blockchain works in Healthcare ?
Blockchain applications in healthcare will not need to operate? differently than blockchain applications in other fields.A blockchain is a shared record of transactions stored in a digital ledger. These transactions are constant, which means they cannot be changed. Notably, there is no need for a centralized authority. No participant in the blockchain is required to have a prior relationship with another participant. For example, an insurer could gain access to a patient's medical records stored in a hospital's EMR system (with the patient's consent) even if the insurer had never previously interacted with the hospital. The primary requirement is that the insurer and hospital be first verified by the blockchain network.
Benefits of Healthcare Data Management
Healthcare Data Management has the potential to significantly benefit healthcare organizations, medical staff, and patients.
Create a comprehensive view of patients, households, and patient groups - Composite profiles that provide status and allow for predictions
Improve patient engagement - ?By targeting patients with reminders and care suggestions based on predictive modelling.
Improve health outcomes - By tracking health trends in specific areas or among specific populations, forecasting new trends, and suggesting proactive measures to combat rising health issues.
Business decision making - Assist healthcare providers in making better data-driven decisions, such as which types of medical professionals to hire, what equipment to purchase, or which types of patients to target in marketing efforts.
Analyze physician activity - Examine data on medical practitioners such as success rates, time spent on various treatments and medical decisions, and physician alignment with the goals of the healthcare organisation.
Challenges of Healthcare Data Management
Adoption - The adoption of blockchain in healthcare has been slow for several reasons, including litigation concerns and the perception of blockchain as a newer technology.
Scalability - Some healthcare organizations are concerned that blockchain systems will be unable to scale to meet their requirements.
Security flaws - Despite some security advantages, blockchains can have potential security flaws, which are especially concerning in healthcare applications.
Data integration? - Integration of Healthcare data is essential for a variety of stakeholders, including patients, providers, creditors, payers, and the government. Integration and analysis of various healthcare data sets, including clinical, operational, and financial data, as well as combining this data with external population health data and other social determinants of health, becomes useful for public healthcare data management.
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Dataset cataloguing - All of the different datasets from asset IDs and EMRs, claims, EHRs, Pop health data, Accounts receivable, and other sources are creating challenges in terms of tagging and managing a rich set of metadata with appropriate ontologies and taxonomies for various elements of each dataset relative to the rest.?
Companies that use Blockchain in Healthcare
Many of the blockchain-enabled healthcare companies are small and not publicly traded. However, several blockchain-focused technology stocks have developed solutions for the healthcare sector. Some healthcare companies are also actively utilising blockchains. Here are three examples striking,?
Anthem??
Anthem (NYSE:ANTM) is one of the largest health insurers in the United States. In 2019, the company joined forces with several other partners to develop a blockchain healthcare network. In 2021, Avaneer Health was formed as a result of those efforts. Avaneer is creating blockchain solutions to help reduce inefficiencies in the healthcare system in the United States.
However, Anthem's investment in Avaneer is only one example of its blockchain plans. In March 2021, Anthem's chief digital officer, Rajeev Ronanki, told investors that the company's goal is to be "a digital business, a business that innovates faster than the market." He went on to say that this means the company will "transform every part" of its operations with artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.
CVS Health
CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) is another company that assisted in the formation of Avaneer. Although CVS is best known for its retail pharmacies, the company also owns a leading pharmacy benefits manager as well as Aetna, one of the largest health insurers in the United States.
Aetna is also an important partner in the Synaptic Health Alliance. The alliance's goal is to investigate how blockchain technology can be used to address major challenges in the healthcare sector.
IBM
For more than a century, IBM (NYSE:IBM) has been a technology leader. It is also a key player in the development of blockchain solutions for healthcare.
The blockchain technology developed by the tech giant is used to assist organizations in verifying healthcare credentials. IBM's Trust Your Supplier solution uses blockchain to enable customers to quickly and securely qualify, onboard, and manage suppliers. Its blockchain platform is also used for a variety of other healthcare applications, including vaccine distribution monitoring.
The Future of Blockchain in Healthcare
Although the benefits of blockchain are significant, it may require a conscious and significant effort to reorganise and realign IT systems to take advantage of these technologies.
The public blockchain may not be suitable for storing all electronic health records because it would be inefficient and costly. Creating a private blockchain could be an option, depending on how it is managed and operated. Organizations and companies may choose to use cryptocurrencies to monetize data and encourage data sharing for a variety of reasons, such as research, clinical studies, or insurance.
An individual's data owner should ideally be the individual himself, with complete control over his data. Many healthcare organizations and healthcare Information management may turn to these technologies in the coming years to improve collaboration with other organizations and provide patients with a better overall experience.
To sum it up,?
We can all see the impact of healthcare data management on how the world exchanges data in response to COVID. Data is quickly coordinated, collaborated on, and shared. Based on the data, experts around the world can make informed decisions about how to respond to the virus, taking into account a variety of factors such as their economy and other unique constraints. The general public is paying attention to health data for individual decisions about their care options like never before.
Healthcare data management presents numerous challenges and opportunities. Healthcare data management companies are rapidly evolving in order to meet today's and tomorrow's challenges. The advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. The adoption of new innovative technologies to support healthcare for both providers and patients looks bright for the future.