The Emerging Need of Block chain Technology in Healthcare Industry.

The Emerging Need of Block chain Technology in Healthcare Industry.        

                                    - Martin F.R. 

With the latest, hustle bustle going around the blockchain technology around the economic & financial world. We all are familiar with term blockchain & its usage in most of the major financial articles these days. But, for those who still don't know, what the new age block chain technology is all about. 

The term blockchain ,came to wider public prominence only when the crypto currency phenomenon hit the financial market with the likes of bitcoin, ethereum etc.But what block chain does at large is that, it acts as an independent intermediary unit that performs multiple transactions which are shared peer to peer within a structured network database. More or less it's a kind of digital ledger where authorized users cannot either delete or bring any changes in the data record until and unless approved and validated by all the users. 

But, the burning question here is that whether, is the block chain just limited to serving the world of crypto currencies only? The answer to this simply is, a big No! Because when we keenly try to understand the impact that blockchain technology had in the world, we observe that it has been incorporated in many major industries like realestate, finance, tourism etc. 

But, when major industries have used the benefits & advantages of blockchain technology it seems that the sector which has still not woken up to this breakthrough invention in form of blockchain is the healthcare sector which seems to be highly unfortunate. The Healthcare sector is the one which needs to adopt the blockchain methodology to improve the burgeoning issues  persisting in sectors especially like solving interoperability problem & the data security of patients at large which it has been struggling to maintain since decades. 

As of now In healthcare industry the critical information gets scattered over varied multiple systems which creates issues of accessing such information in times of need. The present overall healthcare infrastructure  is such that it lacks the capability of handling the inter exchange of information which can be done only using technology such as like that of blockchain softwares.Blockchain is no more in its hay days of innovation & need of wider acceptability but has reached it's near final stage of globally impacting the major industries especially those which include heavy loaded transactions .The current expectations is such that if blockchain gets the nod by the healthcare industry ,it can completely transform the way we look at healthcare & data together. 

The major advantage of blockchain technology is that it is relatively secure as does not involve any central administrator in any of the transactions done through it. The technology is such that it records digital data in such a way that it does not allow for any of the data to be changed until it reaches the end user. The financial world has already though lately have understood the benefits of using blockchain technology in major operations they do. The banks that use this technology are able to benefit as it cut downs their expenditure by about $8–12 billion every year in its totality. Blockchain advantages & opportunities for healthcare industry are extensively many.

The major significant potential for blockchain to be used in the healthcare industry are the following: 

1. Data Management of Patients records, disease registries, and treatment & diagnosis records, lab results etc. can be delivered through blockchain technology. 

2. Tracing Drugs Used Patient Treatment, clinical trails& handling data security.Using blockchain technology there is no way of data to mutate as its impossible to change the data thus providing security when comes to be it data or clinical trails. 

3. Bringing in transparency in system, data collection through monitoring systems, patient’s health records maintenance. (Interoperability).

4. Keeping the records of medical insurance claims.Patient data privacy is mostly regulated by the HIPAA System. (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. But patients also need to share information with allied services like pharmacy. Blockchain technology helps in protecting your data privacy it that situation also where it blocks the patients identity but other details remain so. 

*According to a recent international survey done by hypeledger,nearly 42.9% of healthcare organizations around the world accept that the interoperability of electronic health records will help for faster blockchain implementations with  nearly 28.6% of respondents ready to incorporate this technology in health care settings today. 

Also as the any kind of healthcare claims can easily verified as the chances of error or fraud is low due to no involvement of central authority. Any contracts using blockchain can also assist the hea0th care organizations in monitoring the supply demand cycles holistically through the entire cycle used from where the transaction took place to its  it end result. 

There are even many blockchain healthcare startups like Medrec, Gaurdtime, Gem Health, Care chain, Hu-manity which are focusing on varied ways how blockchain can be used in health industry many of which were mentioned above. 

Even though, the potential of the impact that blockchain can have on healthcare is huge, but it depends upon the healthcare organizations to create the appropriate infrastructure and needed resources to boost their efficiency in managing several work that blockchain technology can improve. With the emergence of this technology investments & funding for projects in this field has gone up which is a sure bound to bring wide range possibilities & transformation in healthcare industry and more so in the digital world.