Blockchain in healthcare: Two Use cases
Uses of Blockchain in healthcare: Focus More on Patient Care
The healthcare industry deals with sensitive, personal, and confidential patient information, so it has unique data management requirements. However, this data is frequently stored and dispersed across multiple facilities and providers, resulting in time-consuming and inefficient processes – especially when this data needs to be accessed in an emergency. As a result, blockchain technology is ideal for addressing these issues. It can securely store and encrypt patient data such as medical records, update patient data across multiple locations securely and automatically, address inefficient practices, and prevent data breaches. PatientMD is planning to launch healthcare coins that can help
PatientMD is a blockchain-integrated platform with mobile and web apps for secure information sharing and healthcare services. PatientMD is planning to launch healthcare coins that can motivate healthy lifestyle changes. The two types of tokens will be a fungible Patient token and a non-fungible Health token.
Discussed below are two of the ways blockchain technology can help healthcare.
What is Blockchain?
A blockchain is a digital ledger that contains an immutable historical record – or chain – of all transactions that have occurred on the network of that blockchain. The digital ledger is transparent, allowing for information counter-checking and making information falsification difficult. Furthermore, because blockchain data is immutable, no individual person can change a transaction after it has been recorded on the shared ledger.
How Blockchain Can Help Your Healthcare Organization Thrive
By incorporating blockchain technology into day-to-day operations, any healthcare organization can improve its processes while also lowering its legal risk.
Here are the two ways to consider joining the blockchain revolution.
Better Patient Data Management and Sharing
The secure storage and transfer of patient information are some of the most difficult challenges confronting the healthcare industry. Siloed record-keeping systems can frequently result in contradictory, ambiguous, or incomplete records. Furthermore, when doctors refer patients to other doctors, patients are frequently required to personally carry their medical information. This almost always leads to poor data handling, increased security risks, and unintentional disclosures – especially if healthcare practitioners use outdated and insecure systems that aren't linked to other healthcare systems and applications. These difficulties waste resources, time, and expose you to legal risk.
PatientMD blockchain technology, however, can help the owner of medical data to maintain its privacy while also providing a vehicle for patients, doctors, and healthcare providers to share the same information rapidly and securely. When a medical record is produced, for example, it can be stored on the blockchain and encrypted with a private key. This way, only specific individuals have access to it, giving patients more control over their own records and ensuring privacy without the need for a central gatekeeper. Furthermore, blockchain in healthcare has the potential to decrease patient documentation errors as well as problems created by inconsistent data among medical practitioners. Furthermore, when combined with smart contracts, blockchain technology can be used to set parameters that only allow access to patient data in accordance with a patient's consent policy.
The avoidance of miscommunications between different healthcare professionals caring for the same patient can prevent countless mistakes and result in faster diagnosis and care that can be personalized to each patient.
The connection between Data Security and Electronic Health Records
Current recordkeeping systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks because data breaches cause significant financial losses for healthcare practitioners and organizations, reduce trust, and harm brand integrity. Furthermore, depending on the nature of the violation, such violations may violate a variety of regulations and laws. Electronic Health Records are extremely valuable to hackers looking for detailed personal identifying information, so securing this information is a top priority as ransomware attacks and other types of data breaches pose daily challenges for healthcare organizations.
The PatientMD Blockchain platform, however, can help in strictly adhering to standard security protocols, provide end-to-end encryption, and prevent unauthorized access to data while in transit. Furthermore, decentralizing sensitive data makes hacking data storage systems more difficult, if not impossible. The use of crypto tokens in healthcare simply masks patients' health records to restrict unauthorized access without the consent of all valid parties.
Parting thoughts
Blockchain has shown tremendous potential to transform the healthcare industry, and as the technology evolves, we will be able to see many new use cases. Having said that, there are still a number of privacy and operational issues that must be addressed. If you’d like to learn more about PatientMD’s blockchain, please text us at +18727048154.
Visit our website: token.patientmd.com/