For the 21st century technology newbie's,
Blockchain can simply be described on a unique concept. An '' append only ''
open ledger where very transaction that occurs within the network is added to
this ledger once authenticated by the nodes in the network.
Challenges faced in implementing blockchain technology in healthcare
industries
Healthcare care industry faces
many challenges in this modern technological era such as timely access to
patient data, fragmented data, cost efficiency, data security, access and data
inconsistency, and system interoperability. These can be overcome by block
chain that supports seamless information sharing that eliminate errors and
inconsistencies that arise with traditional centralized data storage. Wide
variety of solutions and opportunities include digitizing data security for
transactions, eliminating third-party applications removes time lag in data access.
Emergence of organized and
structured independent system provide healthcare professionals a powerful
impetus for expanding opportunities in global e-health solutions. Despite its
promising forecast, there are some ambiguities around blockchain which is being
questioned for it s regulatory issues.
Theoretically, applications of
blockchain in the healthcare ecosystems are immense. Elimination of third party
applications would increase the efficiency and reduce the cost together with
end user applications such as claims processing and go-to market strategies.
however as the blockchain technology is being adapted in the new generation,
healthcare industry has to adapt to its new delivery and financial models.
According to the forecast by
Grandview Research (2016), blockchain technology market is expected to reach
7.74 billion USD by 2024. With annual constant growth rate of 61.5%, it is
estimated that blockchain technology (in healthcare domain) market is expected
to grow to 2.3 billion USD by 2021 from
340 million USD in 2017.
Various factors influence the
growth of the technology include
a. limited access to population
health data
b. Consumer engagement such in
the form of diseases and management and clinical outcomes
c. Inconsistent rules and
permissions for accessing electronic health data of patients
While there are many factors
which also inhibit the development are immature infrastructure where the
technology is not in experimental phase and increased developmental costs. Also,
scalability constraints in terms off trade-off between volume of transaction
and influence of computers for processing time of transactions.
To
summarize, the applications of blockchain technology in healthcare industry
forecast promising solutions in Electronic heath record (EHR) distribution of
data and nationwide interoperability. However, Large scale Trials must be
experimented to make sure that a secured and established systems is implanted
on high level in healthcare.
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