In 2017, a company called Akiri launched its first venture with the aim of protecting the healthcare data of patients. They achieved this by building a network-as-a-service model that seamlessly shares patient data only with relevant parties on a need-basis, saving none of it.
One of the main issues in healthcare, according to Adriaan Ligtenberg, CEO of Akiri, is its outdated technology. Akiri network aims to reduce costs and boost efficiency by automatically validating data sources and applications; processes that are still carried out manually at some firms. They achieve this peerless output by leveraging the principles of blockchain technology.
By this time, we are sure that you would have come across the term “blockchain”. When you open social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn, you’ll find terms like NFTs, Metaverse, Web 3.0, and crypto trading being thrown across the spectrum with minimal context.
And chances are that you want to cut the noise and learn about blockchain technology’s core use cases. If that’s you, then keep reading because in this blog we will dissect (pardon the pun) how blockchain is revolutionising the healthcare industry. But first, we must understand exactly what is a blockchain.
What is a Blockchain?
Here is the technical definition of blockchain. A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that stores data in immutable blocks linked together and is shared among the nodes of a trustless computer network.
If you understand this, then great job! You can move on to the next segment of the blog.
But if this definition just gave you flashbacks of staring blankly at the blackboard in school while your teacher solved a complex trigonometric equation, then read on.
Let’s just assume that you get a newspaper every day. You read it for an hour and then you keep it in a storage unit. You place today’s newspaper on top of the one you got yesterday. When you do this for a month, you have 30 newspapers on top of each other. For the sake of this scenario, let’s assume everyone who is subscribed to the same news agency does the same thing.
At the end of the month, all of you have a stack of newspapers that is identical to the stack that everyone else has. Anyone can look back on the content of any newspaper by filtering through dates. No one can change what’s written in the newspaper, and most importantly, only the people who have subscribed to get the newspaper will have access to this repository.
If you extrapolate this system into the digital world, what you get is a blockchain.
The newspapers are the blocks of information that can’t be changed. These blocks are connected through their unique dates. The network comprises all the subscribers of the newspaper. And the data of the blocks is shared by everyone in the network in their home in a decentralised manner.
Scroll back and read the definition again. Now it would make complete sense. Now that you have understood what a blockchain is, let’s see why we need it.Â
Why Blockchain?Â
- Security and privacy: In the blockchain, data is stored between participants of the network, rather than in a centralised database. This gives you more ownership of data while reducing the possibility of an attack by a hacker because there is no honeypot (one common database) for them to target.
- Transaction cost reduction: By enabling peer-to-peer transactions, blockchain eliminates third parties, reducing transaction costs.
- Transparency: The blockchain provides a high level of transparency, as every transaction made is recorded and publicly validated.
- Immutable: Once entered, no one can change the data written to the blockchain. This includes system administrators and third parties. This helps people to prove that the data is genuine and unaltered.
We’re sure that by now your mind is already buzzing with use cases of blockchain in the real world. So let’s not go into more definitions and get right into exploring how blockchain is being used in the healthcare industry.
Blockchain in HealthcareÂ
The biggest pain points in the healthcare industry caused by IT can be defined under these categories:
- Data Storage
- Data Security and Seamless Shareability
- The limitations of the current tech stack for innovation
- Human errors in clerical tasks
While the current systems are functional, they have fundamental drawbacks. For example, just between 2009 and 2017, more than 176 million patient records were leaked in data breaches. Moreover, mere miscommunication between various stakeholders in the healthcare industry has an accrued expense of over $11 Billion per year.
Right now, patients have fragmented records of their medical history with no common repository of all their prescriptions, their consultations, and the procedures they have gone through. It’s scattered across multiple databases or printed documents. Healthcare professionals face greater difficulties if they do not have a consolidated report of a patient’s medical history.
However, the good news is that blockchain technology’s trustless, peer-to-peer, immutable system can effectively resolve all these pain points.Â
     Fig. 1 Current Flaws in the Healthcare Sector
The Scope of Blockchain in Health CareÂ
Data Storage and Data Sharing:Â
The recorded data on a blockchain is immutable. This means that it cannot be modified once it is entered into the blockchain. This ensures unedited and accurate transference of healthcare records across all the stakeholders in the healthcare industry. Since the data of a blockchain can only be accessed by members of the network, the data can be shared on a peer-to-peer basis without an intermediary body storing any records.Â
Check out how these companies are applying blockchain to healthcare security.
- Akiri: Akiri is a blockchain protocol designed to ensure healthcare data remains secure and accessible to only the parties that need it.
- BurstIQ: BurstIQ’s platform offers comprehensive and real-time information about patients’ health and healthcare activity. This can help curb prescription drug abuse.
- Youbase: Youbase stores medical data that can be used for research or treatment.
Advancement of ComputationÂ
In theory, a blockchain network is nothing more than a digitised extraction of a complex mathematical model. This means that every blockchain network has the capability of conducting laborious computations quicker than traditional computing systems. In the healthcare sector, this capability is of relevance to genome sequencing.Â
Blockchain can securely store billions of genetic data points, making it the ideal technology for this expanding sector.
Some companies you can look out for regarding this:-
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1. Encrypgen: Encrypgen’s blockchain platform simplifies genetic information sharing, storing, and purchasing.
2. Nebula Genomics: The company uses blockchain to streamline the study of genetics and lower costs.
                        Fig. 2 How Blockchain can revolutionise Healthcare
Conclusion
Blockchain technology is a sophisticated tech stack that has its use cases extending into all segments of Web 2.0. Having said that, the whole Web 3.0 ecosystem is still in its infancy. The conversations we are having right now about blockchain are reminiscent of the conversations we had about use cases of Web 2.0 during the late 1990s and early 2000s. As of right now, the functional use cases of blockchain in healthcare are extending to the protocol level. However, the widespread adoption of this decentralised technology for enterprise and end-user applications is inevitable.