Is Blockchain Going to Be the Next Big Thing in Medicine?
While you may have heard the word blockchain in the
context of cryptocurrencies, there is more to this financial technology than
just facilitating investments. While cryptocurrency remains the buzzword of the
season, the blockchain technology is all set to disrupt some other industries
as well, mainly medicine. Surprising, right? What does a technology that
involves people paying money across countries have to do with saving lives?
Turns out, it has a lot to do with the way hospitals maintain research data and
use them to further medicine.
All hospitals
have a computer at the front desk already. What will blockchain add?
Let us think about it this way. Hospitals are places
that have seen the most and the least innovation over the decades. Most, sure.
Anybody can write pages about how modern medicine has increased life
expectancy. But why least? A hospital is full of doctors who are arguably one
of the most educated and smartest members of the society. But hospitals have
seen very little innovation in terms of data handling. Most patient information
is still stored manually and the most technological advancement you can see in
hospitals is the use of Excel sheets. But as they say, data is everything.
Imagine how much more advancements could be possible if all the patient data
and research records were kept in a consolidated way with complete access
granted to all doctors, hospitals and patients.
What is wrong
with the way things are being done right now?
The sad status quo is that there is still no
universally recognized patient identifier. When patients suffering from
critical illnesses are transferred elsewhere, a significant amount of time is
lost in transferring his records. Even emails are not safe from a total system
crash and loss of information. Lives are put at risk just because there was
some error or delay in data transfer which took the treatment in an entirely
different direction from where it should have headed. This is exactly the gap
blockchain technology seeks to fill. Just think about the number of lives that
could be saved from fatal diseases just by avoiding the time lag in transfer of
patient information from one doctor to another. This number itself makes the
usage of blockchain technology seem worth it.
This error seems
to be manageable with faster processes, why make an effort for blockchain?
While these were just process errors, there is a much
darker side to the story, which is frankly unethical. The process called
“information blocking” is rampant in the medical industry today because data is
private to every hospital.
That hospitals are as much a money-making institution
today as any other business house, is no secret. Hospitals do not want their
profitable patients to transfer elsewhere even if that was the best option for
their recovery. To keep the cash flowing in, they try to prevent such transfers
in all possible ways including not giving out complete details of the patient
even though it was possible to reveal. It is exactly at this point where the
use of blockchain technology would help reinforce transparency. All details of
the patient would be stored in a public chain where it could be accessible by
all interested parties, and thus save the patient from wrong or delayed
treatment due to withheld information.
It is quite clear that using blockchain technology
will be the best option for the patient’s health and safety; and the
sustainability of the healthcare industry.
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