What is Healthcare Blockchain Technology and How Does It Support the Digital Health Industry?

The world is moving towards the third generation internet which is powered by Blockchain technology. It will empower the users with complete control over their identities and social data. However, Blockchain technology not only impacts the internet but also all industries including healthcare. 

But still, there are some difficulties in understanding blockchain technology and how it helps the healthcare industry. This blog will weed out such challenges and explain the things about healthcare blockchain technology and some use cases. Let’s check.

What is Blockchain and Its Features?

A blockchain can be defined as a data storing system or a ledger of data that can record and track data. This information recording system is impossible to change, hack or forge.

The main features of this blockchain technology make it a necessary one that should be adopted by recent technologies.

• Immutable- Any approved records/ data cannot be changed by anyone. 

• Distribution- All network participants are distributed with a copy of the ledger to ensure transparency.

• Decentralized- This feature of blockchain enables fault-tolerance, low failure rate, and no risk. 

• Hash Cryptography –  Each block is linked with others cryptographically. So, this technology is highly secured. 

• Consensus Algorithm – Decision-making algorithms to get agreement quickly. 

With these important features, the blockchains can provide fast and secured transactions of data. That’s why it is the most wanted tech stack in all industries. 

Need for Healthcare Blockchain Technology 

These blockchain technologies can help healthcare startups and organizations to transform the industry by enabling patient-centric, high-end, and quality healthcare services. It can remove the concurrent challenges of the digital healthcare industries like patient data protection, secured sharing, interoperability, etc. 

Blockchain technology can enhance data security, data exchange quality & speed, integrity, and access to patient data. When using blockchain technologies, the data couldn’t be altered, deleted, or hacked. It can enhance the digital healthcare industry, as it has the capabilities. 

Capabilities of Blockchain Technology to Support the Digital Healthcare Industry

Blockchain technology in the medical field can create a trusted repository of patient data that is accessible worldwide. It can also be supported by future technology advancements like Web3.0 and others. 

So, healthcare companies and organizations are preferring blockchain in healthcare app development process as it has the following capabilities to support the digital healthcare industry.

1. Healthcare Data Protection – It helps to store the medical data of patients, prescription data, or personal data related to one’s health condition with high-end protection.
2. Effective Personal Health Record Management System – It’s an electronically stored personal health record (PHR) that can be managed and it can be powered by blockchain technology to manage and access them from anywhere and anyplace.
3. Genomics Data Management – Genomics is the study of genes and it helps to predict, diagnose and treat diseases and disorders more precisely. In biotech and bioinformatics, the genomic data (DNA data) need a large amount of storage to store and process for research purposes. In this, blockchain can be used to support the data storage solution.
4. Enhanced Electronic Health Records – Blockchains allow the patients and doctors to exchange electronic health records (EHR) through a decentralized peer-to-peer network. 
5. Managing EMR Data- An EMR (Electronic Medical Records) is nothing but a digital version of the paper charts/ records of a clinic/ doctor. Simply, it is a digital treatment history of the patients. Blockchain technology can store such data securely and make the data accessible to anyone in the network only. 
6. Manage Research Related Data –  Blockchain technologies can allow researchers in any industry to store, access, and share their research data securely. Through this, they can assure the traceability, high-end security, and Immutability
7. Blockchain Tracing – With blockchain solutions, tracking medications, blood donor entry registers, and other kinds of data can be done by individual serial numbers. In other words, by using digital tokens, every entity of the huge data is traceable. 

These capabilities of a supply chain can support the digital healthcare industry to ensure its growth. Let’s explore some blockchain use cases in the healthcare industry.

Healthcare Blockchain Use Cases

With the aforesaid features, and capabilities the blockchain can be used in the healthcare sector. 

• In recent days, blockchain technologies are used to maintain the EHR (Electronic Health Records) of the patients. This blockchain technology in medical field can make the records accessible to all members of the network which includes physicians, lab technicians, and others with high-end security. 

• The healthcare blockchain technology enables strict healthcare rules and protocols through ‘Smart contracts’ programs. It is a program stored on the blockchains and executed only when predefined conditions are met. Securing patients’ records with a private key is one of the best examples of the usage of smart contracts. 

• As we have seen before, blockchain technology in healthcare can support research related to the digital healthcare industry. So that the important data can be stored that couldn’t change, delete, or hack. 

• It also helps to monitor and locate blood donors by accessing the data of blood donors in no time. By integrating all data related to the blood donors in a specific landscape, the practitioner can easily find the perfect donor near them. 

• The healthcare blockchain technology can be used to forecast medical-related situations like predicting the rise in flu fever/ others based on the previous year’s reports. 

Along with this, healthcare blockchain technology can be used in healthcare app development. Such applications can establish data storage with high-end security, create in-app communication with encryption, ensure data privacy, and others. 

The data stored in the application or cloud will be encoded and saved with a cryptographic hash. So, it is impossible to change, delete or hack. You can avail applications for your healthcare business/ startup for many purposes like hospital management, online doctor appointment, telemedicine, pharmacy management, or others. 

The only thing you need to consider is, choosing the best app development company. Uplogic Technologies has been providing healthcare app development services using blockchain. So avail the best operative mobile app with blockchain technology from a top-rated healthcare app development firm.

Summing Up

To conclude, the blockchain can be considered a futuristic tech solution. So, consider this tech solution while developing your healthcare app. By choosing the best healthcare app development firm like Uplogic Technologies, you can get the app with healthcare blockchain technology. That can help you to uplift the healthcare business as future-ready.