Bitcoin Forum

So with blockchain technology growing and adoption coming quickly, we are obviously going to see large industries like healthcare, banking, and law enforcement begin to utilize the strengths of blockchain.

Curious your thoughts on how blockchain could benefit the healthcare industry and why.

A great use case that I can think of right of the bat, is protection of patient data, making it immutable once stored.

Can you quote any real-life examples of the same? There are a lot of news and media coverage but have you ever come across a real-life hospital putting any of their processes on blockchain yet?

Patient data should be mutable man! What if the patient suffered a condition in the past that he doesn't suffer anymore? The data should be updated. Yes, we don't have to replace the previous record but definitely, need to update it.

To answer your first question, I have no seen any current examples of blockchain application in healthcare. This article nails some stuff that is helps with, I just got some good stuff from it:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/deloitte-3-ways-blockchain-might-improve-hospital-operations-by-2027.html

Replying to your second quote, patient data can be immutable and still be updated. Redundancy is always a great thing, and so is record keeping, and that is what this would involve. If the patients data needs to be updated, the new data will be stored, thus still having the old record accessible and unchanged.

Yes like I said there are articles and fancy media coverage but the industry isn't just ready yet.

That makes sense! But again the authority who is allowed to change the data must be verifiable publicly otherwise false data could also be updated.It isn't easy as it sounds to be honest.

Very true, not much is easy when talking about the healthcare industry...

But as blockchain adoption grows, many of these industries will benefit even in a minor way.

Medical data theft is something that many people believe can happen very easily. As happened recently, in early 2013, this health information is not kept too tight. However, health information must sometimes be shared from cellular providers to treat patients. Therefore, there is the potential for this information to fall into the wrong hands when the transfer is made.

If medical records or other health information must be stolen, it is often used by thieves to extort providers in order to get money. Of course, it can also be a way for thieves to access credit card information or get names, addresses, insurance information and social security numbers that can be used in other ways.

So, how can the Blockchain secure this condition? Blockchain naturally, can secure the data, because the data is accurate and safe. Because it cannot be changed, falsified, or damaged without great difficulty.

Blockchain technology can leverage the healthcare in terms of security by keeping the sensitive health records of various people in encrypted manner.

The people can decide to whom they can share the data.

i guess the real important question is, what is wrong with current way of storing and protecting patient data? we have been using it for years and there is no problems with it which means there is no need for any change. it is basically a the database, and we don't need to change this database from its current form to a new database form called blockchain.

for instance the answer to above question about bitcoin is that we had a lot of problems with fiat aka centralized currency world including corruption, inflation, lack of privacy, lack of merchant protection with all the charge back scams, lack of security, high costs,... so bitcoin's existence as a decentralized currency was required.

This is vital, not just in the treatment and curing of previous conditions, but in the instances of mis-diagnoses, false-positive test results, or something as simple as incorrect data entry.

What if you get incorrectly labelled with a disease like cancer or HIV for any of the reasons above? Your health insurance will go through the roof. Being able to scrub things from patient records is a good thing.

the issue about blockchain is that some believe EVERYONE has to by law verify data.
at the moment there are only 10k nodes verifying bitcoin. yet millions of users.

so lets go with the concept of not needing millions of verifiers, but just a number of strategically separate verifiers
now lets take healthcare

who actually NEEDS to vrify the data. vs who needs to just be able to viw their own records

imagine a blockchain which has a multisig requiring 3 signatures per record.
a general practioner. a specialist and a labtech. this way a record wont get locked into a mempool without it being seen by validators.
then when forming a block of test results. each ward/department of a hospital then validates the block to insure each test result conforms to certain rules.

it does not actually require every hospital around the world to receive, verify and store every record of every hospital. all it needs is just enough equally distant participants to be involved to ensure no single point of failure

for instance most patients records of a town in america dont need to travel to japan or china. so records just need to be verifid by a lab technician departmnt, a specialist department and a GP. (thats 3 separate buildings) then because of locality. it can have 5 randomly chosen hospitals that are picked within state or county to double check. and have a few out of state, again for emphasis doesnt ned all world hospitals holding the same data

again dont think about it needing to have millions of verifiers for every piece of data uniformically.
there could be a state ledger of xxxthousand patients and another state ledger of anothr xxx thousand patents.

as for any concern still about data storage risks. each departnmt does not actually need to hold the entire blockchain. imagine it like each node only producing a UTXO database of transactions that node(department) is involved in.

..
think about it. in the US there are 320mill population and 5500 hospitals.. thats only <60k patients per hospital(chain)

people do not get tests every 10 minutes. so say they have on average 2 tests a year. thats only 120k record updates needed every year on average

now if the main hospital chain is just full of TXID's thats only a blockchain growth of 3.84mb a year.
meaning a hospital could easily store that blockchain. along with 5500 other blockchains of TXID's without having to stor all patint records.

and each department having just 120k records a year (lets say 500bytes per record) 60mb a year growth. can easily store its own patient data for easy access but also data or nearby hospital departmnts or randomly selected hospital departmnts to keep things distributed to avoid the single point of failure problem.

as i said. 60mb growth per hospital a year..
bitcoin grows at ~200mb a DAY. which is 73gb a year
so a department could store upto 1000 other department ledgers and not be any issues of 'scale' that bitcoin has been fudded about

blockchain technology is a great technology with a lot of benefits but i think the use cases are limited, if we start forcing it into different sectors and try to adapt them with the technology then we may not get the desired result and we may even end up reducing the efficiency that we already have.

Obviously, we're now in a blockchain craze that everything in our environment needed to be use the blockchain claiming it will be economical and sustainable in the long run which is not at the first place.

Not just because this is what the technology dictates it shouldn't be necessary to do so considering this is a health issues that everyone thinks needed a privacy.

I think it boils down to the protection of consumer data. For example, 1.5 million health records were stolen in Singapore:

https://www.dailysabah.com/asia/2018/07/20/15-million-health-records-stolen-in-unprecedented-cyberattack-in-singapore

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Store your data securely and anonymously, backed by our proprietary blockchain, and share it with the doctors you trust.
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By far the most in-depth response yet! Thanks for the contribution franky.

To extend on your thoughts, would there be a better use-case for a different blockchain rather than Bitcoin's?

It's absolutely not. All those things are currently exist and are easily accessible without anything to do with blockchain technology being involved.

I think blockchain technology can really revolutionise some sectors, but I think we have to be careful with just shoehorning it in to places that don't need it or painting it as a magic bullet to solve all our problems.

different blockchain - yes
first thing that needs solving is. what industry needs to have a big batch of information in multiple locations
if data can function from one source. theres not much need to even try introducing blockchain into that industry.

however think about airports which would benefit greatly from having passport data backed up utilised in different locations.
because if you shut one airport. other airports can still run, as long as they have the data..
so if one source goes down..if all the data was in once source. no one can fly anywhere.
but if one source goes down..if all the data was in every airport. anyone one can fly anywhere. by just finding a new airport

where as if facebook.com goes down. it downt matter if their data was on one server or multiple nodes.. theres no point in having blockchain/DLT logged data because the only gateway to that info (facebook.com) is shut down.(you cant just go to another facebook and continue utilising facebook)
yes having facebook back up its data incase the data gets corrupted rather then site shutdown. but from a utility prospective. there is no need to have it scattered across 7000 locations. as it only needs 4-5 backup locations incase of fire/theft.
(facebook doesnt and wouldnt benefit from asking a billion users to hold a copy of the billion users timeline.)

secondly
i was going to waffle into loads of concepts and different 'chain' designs. but there are just so many ways that look nothing like bitcoins design. but the important thing is to work out what industry needs distributed data FUNCTIONALLY that is needed to be UTILISED across locations. rather than just having it as a backup.


i hope you notice the difference between readily available data from different locations being a utility. vs just plain backup of data of one gateway incase of central fault

Blockchain is a technology that allows secure and easy transfer of information so i believe it can benefit greatly.

And not only the healthcare industry, but any possible industry. The new president of Colombia Ivan Duque said that his government was going to use Blockchain to transfer data, you can see the huge possibilities and potential this technology have for the future.

It all depends on the people starting to see it. Just like with AI which if adopted enough, the people learning about it right now will always have job, the same happens with Blockchain developers if it gets implemented a lot more in the future.

There are plenty of incredibly exciting ways blockchain can enhance healthcare operations, especially in terms of patient medical records, complex billing, medical research and more. Because of blockchain's distribution database and transaction history, it can help provide accuracy, transparency and efficiency in health records, drug supply, claims adjudication, patient data management and clinical trials.

Great replies, the use for blockchain in the healthcare industry is definitely there.

What are some ICO's or startups that are working with the healthcare industry and blockchain?

Of course, the other coins will help the technology and much more development on the success of this community. However, it must not only focus on the ability of the business to grow in the financial market but to grow on the people. If blockchain will develop a technology about a health-related solution that might really be beneficial. Thus, the matter of blockchain towards medical attention as a project would really be difficult to realize since there are not yet feasibility studies regarding the projects related to health and its implication for profitability.

Aside from the protection and complete transparency of medical records, blockchain can be use to fight the abusive medical insurance companies as well as expensive hospitals by giving some transparency with Blockchain. With this technology we can monitor price changes and rates or related transactions in which we fail to see on our present system. This large corporations are literally earning billions from our health and it needs to stop as if we have cheap hospital bills we don't need medical insurance in the first place.

Nothing's impossible in crypto community,if we can offer every services and products over this currency then what would be the difference in healthcare?as i believe that many project now are on the process of creating this,

I remember one project that has been created months ago about Cells in the US and will focusing on the prisoners ,if we can offer this one.so what more for health that has been needed worldwide,it is just a bad thing that the said projecy turns a scam at the end

There is a company already using crypto in healthcare. Look up farmatrust which just reached its hardcap. They are preventing fake drugs from circulating by putting data on the blockchain. It has powerful backing from a member of UK parliament and is now trading on qryptos

Nice, this was more along the lines of what I was thinking as well. I do not think some people realize the danger of leaked patient medical information!

What you said is already existing because of many ICOs related to healthcare. Blockchain can also help in the quick process of finding the most suitable doctors for a patient. Lastly, medical prescription data can also be placed on the blockchain so that it will be more efficient because you wont need to go to a hospital.

So a patient come bursting through the doors in cardiac arrest. The team are working frantically to resuscitate them. You need to know what medical conditions they suffer from - now. Have they had previous heart attacks and this is caused by another one? Are they a known drug addict and this could be an overdose? Are they a diabetic and this could be advanced ketoacidosis? Maybe they are a brittle asthmatic? The clock is ticking.

Give me 5 minutes says the doctor, I need to get 3 permissions before I can access this patient's records. Too late. Time up.

The type of health we could give may vary in different ways. If ever we are to input blockchain into the health care industry then I guess it can help. Blockchain can decentralise any information given by then patient. In that case, this records will now be kept and will be under he blockchain's supervision wherein will be untouchable.

Indeed, the immutability of the blockchain offers great advantage for the use case you cited.

I am just afraid that while it is a great advantage to have an append only data structure for patient's info, what happens when there exists a wrong diagnosis that is left out-dated? How does one go about it? When there is no central authority to over turn recorded data on the blockchain?

And since transparency is an innate attribute of the blockchain, what happens to doctor-patient privacy?

Perhaps i'll need to read more on this to actually realize how medical-related blockchain projects can take advantage of the innate offerings of blockchain.

Placing all the health records over the blockchain can be beneficial as it will make it far easier to store huge personal data secured over the blockchain without any further problems with the security. I guess healthcare records are huge collection of data as patient history and current data is always very much important to the doctor to asses the patient conditions. So if you see this coming your way then blockchain will surely provide the best option to grab that data and make it accessible for the patient as well as the doctor himself over the course of time. And as I mentioned already, there will be no issues with the securities.

its not just patient diagnoses that can be stored (patient medial records). its also
patient identity (including insurer)
doctor/hospital staff identity (including level of clearance)
hospital bed utility
pharmaceutical/surgical tools supply
even staff rota's

a single network/chain/dlt does not need to have just 1 usecase. it can have smart contracts for multiple purposes.

imagine a department had 36 staff and needed 12 staff per shift. the smart contract can log who should turn up and if a staff didnt turn up the software could check who else is equally skilled lives in the vincinity and not on shift to contact to fill that shift
the smart contract then signs when shift is over and publishes. and thats locked for hospitals HR/accounts and insurance devision to then release funds to pay the staff that worked. (by hr/accounts/insurance i mean other automated smart contracts of neighbouring sidechains that can view the staff rota sidechain)

opening up a healthcare based ICO will fail to b sustainable after release. this is because ICO's are made by random people looking for more random people to invest. which means it never sees light of day in a actual healthcare establishment because ICO's are aiming their fundraising and promoting at the wrong people


however if its a healthcare based blockchain/DLT then the developers should be contacting

a) government healthcare authorities to request a R&D grant to develop a prototype
b) private healthcare/insurance corporations to invest

and then if they succeed in proving its utility. seek a
a) government project grant to cover costs
b) private healthcare/insurance corporations to continue financing/investing

having medical data encrypted using a key only the patient has is bad.
imagine your in a coma. you cannot give consent. thus no doctor cant see your medical history because they dont have the key

however if the medical records are encrypted purely so its not cleartext. then it's just not readable without using a piece of equipment only supplied to hospitals. helps reduce outside access


and where by diagnosis are made immutible/signed off by more than one medical practicioner (lab tech and doctor) ensures the integrity of the data so that insurers cant just shout 'false claim'. thus reducing the auditing and admin. and just get on with funding medical procedures and medications faster

Blockchain would be very useful in healthcare industry to store patients health data. It can provide the interface to doctor where the all patients data is available. Blockchain will provide secure, fastest method to reach the patient.
Let me give you example ----
Mr A has blood related problem and he went through blood test and laboratory published blood test result on blockchain and mr A want to consult with the doctor regarding his problem, So He just need to share the data with doctor through internet and doctor will check the report and give him suggestions.

I mean, this is exactly what happens currently. A patient doesn't even need to "share the data" - any doctors involved in Mr A's care would generally automatically have access to the relevant data. Adding blockchain tecehnology will not bring any additional benefits.

Just because something could work on blockchain technology, doesn't mean we need shoehorn it in to already working systems. You need to show a real benefit in terms of privacy, efficieny or cost first.

As we all know that blockchain is based on the principle of decentralization that is optimisation of traditional process by utilising the full strength of the available resources. For example, in the healthcare sector, we will be able to implement it in a way that will reduce the paperwork in case of emergency. Suppose Mr. X has his medical data available on the blockchain (along with the confidential access), any doctor treating him around the world would get his health data instantly on the fingertips so that the doctor will be able to treat it in a better way.

Of course, blockchainchain can be used in Healthcare. I've even seen several ICOs from this industry. I think such ICO will continue to appear. I participated in ICO WELL.  WELL Token already received.

An ICO in the healthcare sector makes no sense to me. If there was a really good project, they would simply approach a hospital or insurance company who, upon seeing how good this project is and how much money it could save them, would fund it. Why would they need a tradable token to put patient records on a blockchain, unless it's just to make them a quick buck before they disappear.

For now, i only think the blockchain system can safely store the information in the blockchain database.
So, i think the benefit using blockchain on the health industry is, it can stored the information about patient safely.

While I do agree with what you are saying, it is not reliable to assume corporations will instantly pick up blockchain just because it will save them money on paper.

It would be a great incentive though for blockchain to not only protect sensitive data, but to save the corporation's money.

It will, but from what i see until now, health project with blockchain technology not really popular for investor. But if that  thing want to adopt blockchain i think it will be good for it because can managed better.

maybe using the blockchain system, patient data will be safer, with multiple data verification it will be very useful, but the problem is whether the hospital or medical treatment installation is ready to accept this change? but I am sure that there will be many positive impacts generated, and patients will be more assured of security, and easier to access health, this may be the time this technology is applied in every field in our lives

in my opinion, financing health and well-being problems will someday also use blockchain technology and the use of crypto money that will be used in the times and technology development.

Any information or digital asset that could be stored in a blockchain could qualify as a digital transaction. Each transaction is structured into a ‘block,’ and each block contains a cryptographic hash to add the transactions in a linear, chronological order.

there is your failing. if you cant get a healthcare provider to use it in the first place then its not a healthcare project. its just a empty ledger

if you dont think a institution will use it to protect data. your project is dead before you started.

Data management is really an important part of each and every industry. When it comes to Healthcare the need for data management is much concerned, because each and every move is taken with reference to the recorded data. Earlier hand written notes were used as the data, further the same got moved to the digital form, later to cloud storage and now it's time for blockchain into the same making every process happen without any flaws.

In theory, the increased transparency and accessibility brought by blockchain will lower healthcare costs. However, the privacy regulations in healthcare will force companies to employ private as opposed to public blockchains. More fundamentally, healthcare needs to be revamped so that the monopoly controlling it - at least in the U.S. - is broken.

It's obvious since computerization are begin to accept in very establishment they include also the adoption of blockchain because they simple to explain blockchan is collecting information of the patients data.




Perfect this great explanation how to get benefits using blockchain.

I like Korean startup so much, because they are not afraid to integrate the blockchain into really important areas such as medicine. I agree that the blockchain provides a convenient tool for monitoring any database, including patients. The further the society develops, the faster and more convenient the control systems should be. And the blockchain is the best assistant.

it doesn't matter which sector to talk about, because blockchain can be used everywhere. I am glad that medical institutions will be able to undergo management system upgrades. The speed of processing requests depends on how quickly the medical professional finds the patient's card, and the person can get help.

For a detailed explanation on how blockchain can benefit healthcare, read here: https://medium.com/@odeskpawan1/how-can-blockchain-technology-benefit-healthcare-201f2c4f0b84

I found this post very helpful. The way how blockchain is introduced, and how it will benefit healthcare.

I believe that third pointer mentioned in the post will see most of the blockchain's impact.
Read through the post and share your post on what you think.