Steemit Crypto Academy | S4Week3 - Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare industry
Hey steemians
In this post i will be submitting my homework task for professor @yohan2on.
Research and Discuss the potential applications of Blockchain in the Health care industry
Health, for some people this word doesn't mean a lot in this world full of technology that has made people idle. But for the people who are suffering from any of the diseases, health is anything. This was the case before the pandemic.
Pandemic has taught us all about the importance of health as well as the importance of the healthcare system along with the limitations of the healthcare system that must be taken care of or some reforms that are needed in the healthcare system to tackle problems that arise in a healthcare system.
We have seen the use-case of blockchain systems in various fields related to technology but debates are going on about fostering the use-case of the blockchain industry in various other fields like healthcare and election.
Now to the main point of using blockchain technology in the healthcare industry could prove beneficial in terms of saving cost and time along with providing security of data, the privacy of patients and Data management.
All the above-mentioned features can be achieved using a blockchain technology in the healthcare industry owing to the decentralised nature, immutability, transparency where needed, privacy where needed, management of data, interoperability, security using cryptography.
I will be mainly focusing on India as I live in India and will be talking about the loopholes in the Indian healthcare system that can be filled with the help of blockchain technology.
Loopholes in health care industry and How blockchain technology can be used to fill those loopholes.
Privacy and security of the patient's data is the foremost thing that must be taken care of in the healthcare industry so that no one can use them against the patient to blackmail him/her. There are some data that the patients are not comfortable sharing with anyone or feel embarrassed to share with anyone and if someone gets his/her hands on this data, he/she can use this data against the patients to blackmail them for money.
Patient's data doesn't solely include health-related data, it also includes some personal information like mobile number, address, credit card information and bank account no or details. So no one would want their data to be breached and can be used against them.
The technology used to save the patient's data in the health care industry is not that resistive to hacking or we can say it is more prone to hacking, so it wouldn't be a wise decision to use a technology that is prone to hacking to maintain sensitive data of the patients.
In Kerala, India a medical breach was reported by senior management on the 7th of January 2021, it was reported that the data of the patients of a private hospital of the previous five years is available in the public domain and anyone who has internet access can get the data.
Breached data includes the test reports, prescription by the doctors, scan results along with the details of the patient which includes personal details like address, mobile n, credit card details and bank details.
Information breached or provided online:
(1) Covid test reports: It has to be taken care of that Covid-19 entered in March 2020 in India and the breach of data was reported on 7 Jan 2021, approximately 1 year later, so all the covid tests happened in that period in that hospital was made available on the internet. It is a violation of Right to privacy
(2) Named folders of the patient: The folders were available with the patient name on them by searching on the internet along with all the test reports of that patient, scan reports and consent forms.
(3) Breached data from the Diagnostic centre: The diagnostic centre of the hospital saves the data of all the tests that have been done there for further checkups, and there are some tests that people feel embarrassed of like the HIV test. All the data from that diagnostic centre was breached and made available in the public domain.
It shows the importance of the privacy and security of data in the healthcare industry to make the right to privacy a legal right.
Implementation of Blockchain technology can help to reduce the number of data breach cases to a minimum. It is all thanks to the features of the blockchain and the distributed ledger technology. Privacy and security can be taken care of by blockchain technology in the following ways:
(A) Decentralised nature: Decentralised nature of blockchain technology makes it less prone to hacking as the data stored in the health care industry lately is centralised and thus making it easy to hack, but by using a distributed ledger the data of information can be stored or distributed among all the nodes, it is nearly impossible to hack the blockchain technology.
(B) Cryptography: Cryptography is a method used in blockchain technology for security purposes, cryptography means hidden or secret writing with the help of keys.
Cryptography is a process of preventing any type of data (whether it's private or public) leakage to the third person or third party that is not involved in the communication by using several techniques. My previous homework
So to tackle the problem of security and privacy, data or information of patient's data can be encrypted using smart contracts or the private key given to the patient involved in the encryption along with the public key or unique ID that is needed to decrypt the data.
So to get access to the patient's data and information, the doctors must possess the public key compatible with the private key involved in the encryption of the data and information of the patient or compatible with the unique ID generated through smart contracts.
Anyone who doesn't have the access to the public key can not decrypt the patient's information. In this way, the security and privacy of the patient's data can be taken care of easily.
(C) Immutability: Immutability is a feature in blockchain technology that made it resistant to any kind of change whether it is a little or big. If by any chance a change occurs in the information of any of the patient's data, it can be seen in the blockchain through a feature of blockchain technology called Transparency.
Company that provide privacy and security of patient's data using bloclchain technology
Factom is an IT and software industry that mainly focuses on the healthcare industry, Factom is located in Austin, Texas.
Factom uses blockchain technology to secure the data of the patients by storing it into their platform and making it accessible only to the administration in the hospital and healthcare industry.
There is a unique feature that makes it more convenient to be hard in the healthcare industry and that is the use of security chips that can stick to the paperwork involved in the healthcare industry and these chips can only be accessed by the hospital administration or doctors.
I think in India privacy and security must be made the foremost thing and companies like Factom can be used to make it possible through the use of blockchain technology.
Communication is the key in the healthcare industry to get involved with the patients, know about the disease, giving prescriptions and referring to other facilities or other hospitals.
If communication is not right, the patient will have to suffer in terms of time, money, as well as the care of the patient, which is compromised. In turn, there happens a huge wastage of resources along with the poor feedback of patients.
As long as there is not any harm to the life of the patient, it is fine, but when a miscommunication or poor communication happens between a doctor and a patient it might sometimes lead to a wrong diagnosis and another medical blunder which could cost the patient his/her life.
The staff of hospitals being humans have to rest, unlike machines which can work 24×7. Many cases of miscommunication happen because of the change in the shift of the staff members of the healthcare industry and thus result in above-mentioned cases.
The cause of the delay is miscommunication as well as the storing of patient's information in a centralised way that is not accessible to anyone. So if one were to change the doctor or go for some test he/she might request for the administration to share the data or information of the patient with the other doctor or diagnostic centre, now this process is a cumbersome one and doesn't get completed fast.
Implementation of Blockchain technology can help to reduce the time, cost and resources involved in the process of accessing medical reports or data of a patient. Miscommunication and Delay in healthcare can be taken care of by blockchain technology in the following ways:
(A) Decentralised nature: Decentralised nature of blockchain technology makes it a perfect way to tackle miss-communication by providing data of the patient in the blockchain to doctors and hospitals and everyone who is involved in the treatment process of the patient.
Using blockchain a platform can be made to store the patient's medical reports or data that can only be accessed by professionals, doctors at a faster speed. After every meeting, the data of the patient regarding his health can be updated on that platform.
(2) Interoperability: Interoperability is the feature of blockchain through which the platforms on the blockchain network can communicate with each other along with sharing information.
We have a cryptocurrency called DOT that runs on a platform called Polkadot that provides an Interoperability feature by introducing the use of sub-chains and para chains to communicate and share information on the platform.
Moreover, Polkadot also uses external para-chains called bridges that connect the Polkadot to an external platform leading to seamless communication and sharing of data.
So by using Blockchain technology like Polkadot and others, we can tackle the problem of miscommunication in the healthcare industry.
Company that provide seamless communication and sharing of patient's data using bloclchain technology
Coral health research and discovery is an IT and as well as healthcare industry mainly focusing on sharing data of the patients or medical reports of the patient through blockchain. It is situated in Vancouver, Canada.
The coral health industry stores the patient's medical record or patient's data in the distributed ledger using blockchain technology. Now by connecting the healthcare industry in that distributed ledger, coral health has been able to share patient's information with the doctors quickly. Using smart contracts they verify the data and transfers it as it is.
Now they are thinking about creating a blockchain where patients can also keep track of their data along with the healthcare industry.
I think in India misscommunication is a serious issue and companies like Coral health can be used to make it better through the use of blockchain technology.
The medicine supply chain is something that can't be trusted lately because of many reasons as these chains are untraceable and can be altered by replacing real medicine with the altered one or tampered one by the hackers who have known about the supply chain through security breach.
Sometimes the mediators or intermediaries involved in the supply chain get their hands on the medicine and replace medicine with the tampered one, mediators and intermediaries can also manipulate the labour cost and many other factors involved in the supply chain.
If we go back to 3 or 4 months, India went through 2nd wave of Covid-19 and there was a huge shortage of oxygen all over India and the reason behind it was not the carelessness of government instead it was the people or broker who took advantage of the situation and got their hands on the supply chain and hoarded oxygen for their purpose.
So all these activities in the healthcare industry can be resolved easily by using blockchain technology that makes the supply chain transparent and all the data gets updated as proceeds.
(1) In the capital of India, New Delhi where the situation was worse at the time of the second wave, a man from New Delhi was arrested for illegally hoarding the oxygen cylinders and then selling those cylinders in the black market to make his profit.
He had 4 oxygen cylinders in his possession at that time and when his house got raided he was found guilty and accepted his mistake, a case was registered on him under sections 420 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code.
(2) Fake medicines or drugs came into action too that was recommended by the doctors during the second wave and the appearance of black fungus.
When it comes to life no one can think logically, everyone wanted to get their hands on the drugs that might help them fight coronavirus and black fungus irrespective of the source of the drugs.
It is just two of the cases of oxygen hoarding and fake drugs at the time of the second wave in India and at that time all of us were looking for a possible solution for this illegal hoarding but in between that mayhem, no one thought of using blockchain technology to track the supply chain of oxygen.
Implementation of Blockchain technology can help to reduce the number of fake drugs cases to a minimum. It is all thanks to the features of the blockchain and the distributed ledger technology. Data management and traceability can be taken care of by blockchain technology in the following way:
(1) Transparency: Transparency is a double-edged sword as it has its benefits as well its limitations, but how can transparency play a vital role in management of data and tracking supply chain?
The supply chain starts from the laboratory where the drugs and medicine are created and by using blockchain technology, and once a ledger can be made for a particular drug or medicine, it will help to track that drug from its initial point(laboratory) to the pharmacy or any other source.
The ledger will store and update all the data of that drug along its journey in the ledger. The name of the handlers, mediators and intermediaries can get recorded as well so that no one can intoxicate the drug or replace it with tampered ones or store it.
In this way, it can come up with the labour cost involved in all the processes of delivering the drug or medicine to the pharmacies or stores without any tampering of drugs or medicine.
Company that provide Data management and traceability of drugs and medicine using blockchain technology
Chronicled is an industry located in San Francisco, California which focuses on the supply chain management using blockchain tevhnology.
Chronicled uses blockchain technology that shows chain-of-custody. The sole purpose of Chronicled is to ensure the transportation of drugs and medicine without any manipulation in drugs or replacement of drugs along with the all relevant details included in that shipment.
Chronicled also created a ledger known as Mediledger Project which will ensure the safety, immutability and updation of the medical supply chain.
I think in India delievering fake drugs and medicine is a serious issue and companies like Chronicled can be used to make it better through the use of blockchain technology.
We all saw the importance of health during the pandemic where the immunity of a person can only save him/her. Some companies make a consensus with the insured(insurance holder) for health insurance and nowadays it has become a necessity because of the ongoing situation all around the globe.
Health insurance has become a necessity due to the higher expenses of the healthcare industry and to be more precise, private hospitals. The cost of having a treatment in a private hospital is very high and sometimes it costs you your lifetime savings, so it would be wise if you make an annual payment and in case of any mishappening that health insurance can cover your cost.
Health insurance covers all your costs including doctors fees, diagnoses fees, test fees as well as rehabilitation fees. But what if the data of the health insurance get lost or tampered with or manipulated, in this case how a person can claim his/her health insurance.
The frauds in the claiming of health insurance are mostly by the policyholder or insured by claiming health insurance for someone that hasn't been included in the policy, concealing previous illness, false bills and many other ways.
To tackle these problems healthcare industry must come up with something as it doesn't only sabotage the insurance company as well as the economy of the nation as the income tax is relaxed for the policyholders.
In India, fraud claiming of health insurance had lead to a loss of 45,000 crore rupees(in dollars it can sum up to a billion or several million) in the year 2019 only.
It has become a serious problem for the healthcare industry if they are losing 45,000 crore Rs in just the tenure of one year, it doesn't only affect the healthcare industry as well the nation.
People falsely claim about the medical bills, hides their previous illness and including someone that was not a policyholder in the policy and they prove that by their statement, family and neighbours statement, false bills and whatnot.
In the same year 2019, the fraud insurance claim costs:
Australia: $4 Billion
UK: $3 Billion
Europe: $2-3 Billion
By looking at the data above one can easily see the damage on the healthcare industry because of false claiming of health insurance. We need a fair, transparent and immutable technology like Blockchain technology to tackle this problem.
Implementation of Blockchain technology can help to reduce the number of fake insurance health claims to a minimum. It is all thanks to the features of the blockchain and the distributed ledger technology. Data management and immutability can be taken care of by blockchain technology in the following way:
(A) Immutability: Immutability is a feature in blockchain technology that made it resistant to any kind of change whether it is a little or big. If by any chance a change occurs in the information of any of the patient's data, it can be seen in the blockchain through a feature of blockchain technology called Transparency.
(B) Transparency: As i have already metioned about the importance of transparency feature in data management, the same is the case here a full transparent system can lead to minimising the number of false health insurance claims and further updation of data of the policyholder can make it possible too.
Company that provide medical insurance storage using blockchain technology
MIStore is a company that focuses on handling Insurance reacted data of the health care industry using blockchain technology. MIStore uses the features of blockchain technology called immutability to achieve data management of health insurance of the healthcare industry.
All the spending history and data of the patient is recorded on the blockchain, MIStore possesses "n" servers out of which any "t" servers can transfer or send the spending history or data to the insurance companies without having a look at that data and thus transferring all the updates of spending of the patient to the insurance company through blockchain.
Servers cannot steal the patient's spending data as it requires "n-t" servers to be dishonest and that is quite difficult or nearly impossible to do.
All this process involves transparency and data management so that any patient couldn't put up a question about the credibility of the data and can not falsely claim health insurance.
I think in India false claiming of health insurance is a big issue that must be taken care of and companies like MIStore can be used to make it possible through the use of blockchain technology.
(1) Privacy and security of Patient's medical records: I have already talked about it in the above section as it is one of the greatest advantages of using blockchain technology in the healthcare industry.
Feature of blockchain technology like Cryptography, Immutability and Decentralised nature can help the healthcare industry to tackle the problem of privacy and security of patient's data. Hybrid blockchain can play a vital role in implementing blockchain technology as it can serves the purpose of both public and private blockchain whenever and wherever needed.
(2) Fast and cost-efficient process: Miscommunication or communication gap between the health professional costs the healthcare industry huge damage in terms of money, time and resources.
Features of blockchain technology like Interoperability, transparency and decentralised nature can make a cost-efficient as well as the faster process of accessing patients' documents available on the blockchain and reduce the cost of resources involved in the process of accessing patients' documents.
(3) Tracking pandemic: Using blockchain technology can come in handy to keep track of the individuals affected with the coronavirus and make it available in the public domain to cut contact with that individual or to the health professionals.
Storing the status of affected patients of coronavirus on the distributed ledger and then make it available for the health professional or other involved in the process with the help of interoperability.
The same can be used for the distribution of vaccination certificates in the public domain so that the public can keep track of the individuals who are vaccinated and not vaccinated. To go to other states require a Vaccination certificate and thus providing or making it available in the public domain can ease the process of verification.
(4) Data related to research like genome(genomics): The study of genes and genomes is called genomics and it is very necessary to keep the data safe related to genomics as using genomes one can get all the generic details of an individual.
So there are many chances of theft of genomic data, DNA mapping data, genome sequencing data but this theft can be stopped using blockchain technology to take care of the genome data by providing security and making it available only to the scientists involved in research. This will also cut costs as it doesn't require any middlemen or intermediaries.
(1) Unwillingness to adopt blockchain technology: Mediators and Intermediaries will lose their value as well as the cost including in the process will go down making no profit for mediators and intermediaries.
Hospitals are not willing to share the data of the customers with the insurance companies and looking for their profit.
(2) Regulations by the government: As we talked about the blockchain technology to be implemented in India, India doesn't have a clear stand for blockchain technology and the government of India might take some strict actions regarding the adoption of blockchain technology in the healthcare industry.
(3) Distributed network of the healthcare industry: Being a wide and distributed network, it is very important to implement blockchain technology in the healthcare industry, some hospitals and diagnostics centres might agree to adopt blockchain technology but there are many those who don't want to adopt the blockchain technology, it will be difficult to make communication among hospitals and diagnostics centres.
(4) Lack of knowledge: Lack of technical knowledge or knowledge about blockchain technology can stand as a barrier in implementing blockchain technology in the healthcare industry.
It will be a major shift from moving on to paperwork to online data collection for doctors as well as patients.
In a nutshell, using blockchain technology can prove beneficial in the healthcare industry by reducing cost, waiting time, tracking drug movement, providing privacy and security to patients' data.
In my opinion, India should try to implement blockchain technology for a trial period of 1 year and then see the results, if the results are in the favour of the government and the healthcare industry, we should adopt the blockchain technology. There are many companies like Factom, Chronicled, Coral health and MIStore that can make the adoption of the blockchain technology possible.
Thank you
That was all from my side
For the attention of the professor @yohan2on.
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Excellent work. Thanks for taking the time to research as you share your thoughts on the possible applications of Blockchain in the Medical industry.
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