How can blockchain become a protective shield for medical IT systems?

In recent years, more and more startups and institutions in the medical industry have proposed numerous plans on blockchain networks to ensure the security of health record data.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is currently accepting white papers on blockchain-based health record systems from outsiders and has launched health IT challenges to implement blockchain-based medical record systems on existing platforms.

The department explained:

“The white paper submitted to us needs to discuss the basic principles of cryptography and blockchain technology, study how blockchain can be used in the global interoperability technology route to represent the needs of industry interoperability, patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), precision medicine, and other health care services, and provide implementation advice on blockchain.”

Reduce costs

Over the past few years, the immutability and transparency of blockchain technology have been exploited by major companies, banks, and institutions.

Through repeated trials by financial institutions and testing based on blockchain pre-test platforms, the practicality of blockchain technology in settling financial transactions and assets has been proven as it significantly reduces bank processing costs.

Over time, businesses are discovering the viability of blockchain as an alternative to storing data in transactions and the potential of blockchain technology in industry sectors including the insurance and healthcare markets.

Philipp Schmidt, director of academic innovation at the MIT Media Lab, said in a blog post:

“At its core, it’s just a distributed ledger that records transactions. What makes it special is that it’s persistent, traceable, transparent and decentralized. These properties apply to a system’s reputation as well as to managing financial transactions. In fact, you can think of reputation as a currency of social capital, rather than financial capital.”

Economic Benefits

Healthcare institutions and pharmaceutical companies can benefit from three key advantages: transparency, security, and real-time visibility by moving from their current systems to a blockchain-based IT network system.

Blockchain-based platforms are based on decentralized computer networks and protocols, which means they are more difficult to attack and hack than centralized servers and databases.

In 2015, healthcare company Anthem suffered the largest hack in the industry’s history, with more than 80 million personal data records stolen. To make matters worse, it took the organization nearly nine months to discover the breach.

The blockchain-based system will enhance existing security protocols such as those of Anthem. In addition, real-time visibility and transparency will make data records easily accessible to anyone on the network.

For example, if partners, customers, and Anthem employees attempt to access blockchain network data, a custom encoding system will allow the data to be retrieved by pinning down the exact time in the network block.

Micah Winkelspecht, founder and CEO of Gem, a startup that provides a blockchain application development platform, said:

“In healthcare, there’s a big focus on moving toward more patient-centricity, but your data is stored in a Frankenstein hybrid of records in file formats with less interoperability between systems. But we’re exploring ways to provide real-time access to data across multiple providers and caregivers, and we’re looking forward to how we can move healthcare-related data to the blockchain.”