How do you think blockchain can benefit healthcare?

[ZoomhashLLC]

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.

[Patatas]

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.

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?

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.

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.

[ZoomhashLLC]

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.

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?

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.

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.

[Patatas]

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

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

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.

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.

[ZoomhashLLC]

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

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

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.

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.

[geard]

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.

[Satish147]

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.

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.

[Herbert2020]

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

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.

[o_e_l_e_o]

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.

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.

[franky1]

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

[BrewMaster]

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.

[Crypto Girl]

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

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.

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.

[ZoomhashLLC]

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

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.

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

[malekbaba]

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[ZoomhashLLC]

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

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?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Health records, medical equipments, and drugs supply chain needs to be accessible and decentralization is the only way to do that.

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.

[franky1]

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?

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

[xWolfx]

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.

[IndigoRed]

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.

[ZoomhashLLC]

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?