Blockchain in Healthcare
July 13, 2023
Use Cases: Blockchain in Healthcare
To understand the current state of blockchain in healthcare, it’s important to realize blockchain’s ability to power and secure some important things in our daily lives—just look at voting and retail. And because of its accuracy and accessibility, not to mention it acting as a single source of truth for data, blockchain can be an invaluable tool for healthcare. Consider the ability to quickly access patient medical and insurance records, or giving hospitals the ability to make better decisions regarding staffing, along with practical enterprise blockchain options.
Why Use Blockchain Technology for Healthcare?
The idea of merging old, dated healthcare institutions with a new technology like blockchain may be hard to grasp, but its uses can go quite far. Understanding what blockchain is on a very basic level may help. Simply put, in a blockchain, individual blocks of data appear on a ledger in a sequence, and each one of these blocks actually relies on the one before it to maintain permanence. And because this ledger is public and evaluated by groups of users, any changes must be verified, and any hacking attempts are noticed and quickly remedied. This system acts to protect sensitive data, which makes it especially useful for the field of healthcare.
Five Healthcare Use Cases for Blockchain
With the proliferation of electronic medical records, the healthcare industry is constantly trying to keep patient, hospital, insurance, and billing records secure. And with the large amount of data out there, keeping track of it, while also ensuring privacy, can often be a challenge. With that in mind, let’s explore five use cases that demonstrate the benefits of blockchain for healthcare.
Drug authentication
Because of the blockchain’s ability to act as a single source of truth, it can provide accurate and immutable records for the supply chain industry. And in the case of prescription drugs, security is of the highest concern. This is why using blockchain to track the process is a great way to ensure compliance and safety.Medical records
Because patients visit multiple different doctors, and because their medical needs change, medical records must be easily transferrable between various healthcare institutions to ensure accuracy. Blockchain allows healthcare records to updated quickly and securely.Expedited credentialing
To keep training and certifications up to date, blockchain can expedite the verification of qualifications in the medical field. This reduces fraud and inaccuracies and prevents potential dangerous situations from arising.Real-time insurance information
Blockchain creates a single source of truth to ensure interoperability and accessibility, which can provide up-to-the-minute information for medical providers and insurance companies. It can also detect and protect against fraud with smart contracts powered by blockchain.IoT security
The number of Bluetooth- and wireless-connected devices in the world has seemingly exploded in the last decade. And the healthcare field is no different, with wearable medical devices that can improve patient health while providing their doctor with valuable information about their condition. To make sure this critical medical data is securely gathered and stored, the blockchain provides a platform to ensure accuracy and timeliness.
Blockchain: A Stronger Future for Healthcare
The blockchain is a valuable option to manage the large volume of data processed by the healthcare industry because it offers security, speed, availability, accessibility, and more. To find out more about blockchain’s uses in an enterprise environment, see Oracle Blockchain Enterprise Edition.