Blockchain Technology To Revolutionize Healthcare Industry

The potential of blockchain technology is being realized across multiple industries. Companies and organizations are increasingly undertaking blockchain research to discover relevant use cases. One such sector that can majorly benefit from the technology is healthcare.

A guest post from the Distributed Ledger, published on Bitcoin Magazine says that data breaches in the healthcare sector, for example Anthem and UCLA health, expose sensitive information of an individual including identity, diseases, treatment, payments etc. to hackers which can be highly damaging.

“A blockchain can help prevent this with multi-signatures and cryptography”, it said.

Multi-signatures and cryptography improves data security as the data is hashed onto the blockchain and an individual can access it only if there is approval from the appropriate number of people - the doctor, nurse and patient must all approve; or, perhaps, 2-of-3 have to approve access.

Various efforts in this direction are already in place (some inputs taken from a blog post on CSC by Jonathan Cordwell):

• Gem, a blockchain company, has been working with different stakeholders in the healthcare sector to determine the need for blockchain technology.
• Factom and HealthNautica are trying to secure medical records and audit trails by encrypting the data onto the Bitcoin blockchain with a timestamp that proves its accuracy.
• Blockchain startup Tierion has built a platform for data storage and verification using the Bitcoin blockchain. It has completed its first project with the Philips healthcare group.
• Block Verify is looking to use blockchain in the fight against counterfeit drugs.
• An Israeli startup named DNA.Bits is looking to store genetic and medical data which is secured via the blockchain and accessed using private keys and this will form a “DNA wallet”.
• BitHealth is also considering using the blockchain to store and secure medical records. This system also facilitates Bitcoin payments, which provides patients additional options for how they make payment to their healthcare insurers.