Blockchain in healthcare: use cases, solutions, & benefits

Blockchain properties such as time stamping, peer-to-peer reporting, and processing capabilities are useful for fraud prevention in clinical trials. The distributed ledger technology can be used to store and securely share documents like project proposals, research design, surveys, blood tests, and informed consent of the participating parties. This way, blockchain adds credibility to the research performed, with every document easily verifiable, which strengthens the security of participants’ data, and eliminates the issues of lost documents or datasets.

A top healthcare compliance analytics company Protenus observed 905 health data breaches in 2021 and found out that healthcare data distribution over different databases, often neither consistent nor interoperable, is one of the main reasons. Another problem is though HIPAA has strict regulations around healthcare data privacy, patient records cannot be isolated as there are several parties who may need access.

Blockchain resolves those issues by offering a unified platform for storing and managing all relevant data in one location while maintaining proper security and access control. Pieces of patient data are stored as blockchain blocks identifiable through the patient’s unique authentication ID. This arrangement also allows for sharing health information (blocks) without revealing the ID if the patient wishes to remain anonymous, for example, when participating in clinical research.

There are a number of blockchain use cases in healthcare related to payment. The simplest example is virtually untraceable Bitcoin or other crypto reimbursement for medical services, which is crucial in cases when payers want to keep their confidentiality. Blockchain can also facilitate health data monetization for people who are willing to share their genomic data for research purposes in return for a financial reward. Blockchain can encapsulate their medical records and then facilitate transactions via cryptocurrency payments.

A blockchain-based credential verification system can allow physicians to easily prove that they are licensed professionals without having to contact every institution where the credentials were obtained. Such an exchange platform for healthcare organizations can contain credentials of nurses, doctors, and other types of employees within the healthcare sector. All relevant credentials are input into a distributed ledger and accessed by those parties who entered a special blockchain credentialing agreement. Additionally, permissions to practice at specified levels and in particular locations can be stored similarly.